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I must admit I am puzzled. Here's possibilities

1 - It exploded in mid air. However, if that happened, satellite imagery would have picked it up, and there would be a lot of debrish, including large chunks of the plane, suitcases, etc.
2 - It has major mechanical or electrical issues and crashed. However, same applies - where is the debris?
3 - Pilots in on it, and crashed it as an act of terrorism - does not seem likely, and the debris would be huge
4 - Plane was hijacked and taken somewhere. The transponder was off - forced to turn it off? The plane did veer off course, but how did it escape detection, and where did it go? A plane that big can't just land anywhere. Plus, hijackers make demands, no one has made any
5 - Pilots in on it and took it somewhere. Planned in advance. Plane has landed and can't be seen because it's inside a hanger or something like that. But... where could it land like that undetected? Why would they do that and then keep quiet?
6 - Lost is happening in real life
7 - Langoliers
8 Twilight zone

anything else?

It's in the drink.  Why is debateable...could be terrorism, could be another 777 malfunction, could be some other cause.  Just MO.

right now everything is debatable. where is the debris?

I think a crash is more likely than 4 and 5, but those possibilities won't leave my brain. They're not very plausible, but then neither is a crash with no debris, no smoke, etc. Every possible answer requires a whole series of unlikely events. I feel for the families, but I am also just fascinated by what we're witnessing (or not witnessing, really) here.

As has been mentioned, the fact that there is no debris just can't be rationally explained.   :dunno:

Ultimately my guess is we find that for whatever reason, the pilot veered way off course (in an attempt to return to Kuala Lumpur?) after losing his electronics, including all communications capabilities, and that the plane did crash. It hasn't yet been found because it's far outside the areas that have been searched so far.

I think that's the most plausible scenario but it still raises many questions.

CO, you're probably right...but what if they never find it? Can you imagine?  :wtf:

Also the black box not emitting anything is weird. They are designed to emit a signal when in water.

I'm not sure the apparent lack of debris is demonstrative one way or the other.  Where did it actually go down.  Was it intact or otherwise?  Are they looking in the correct area?  Remember the jet that went down in the everglades (cargo fire).  Very little debris or evidence of a crash having occured, and they knew where it went down.

One example is whether there are primary returns indicating a course reversal or not? 

The news conferences to date have been noteworthy for, in my eyes, a lack of professionalism. 

Malaysian Triangle???

It's a test run for the rapture.

Agree.  Plane eventually crashed after going far, far off course in its attempted return to Kuala Lumpur. 

letting Putin know he best do a crawfish or O is gonna fry him.  :patriot:

So, has it been found?

Warning:  The guy in the video is hard to listen to.  He doesn't talk like we do.   :naughty:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/12/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html

9-Nick Saban is to blame.


BG :wink:

We really were trying to avoid the OBVIOUS :box:

I am  astounded I have not seen any of the UFO/ancient alien/current alien nut jobs claiming the plane was taken/abducted.  This is such an easy answer. It cannot be proven or disproved.  Why no sign of debris or call for help? Aliens!!!!
It makes as much sense as some of the explanations I have heard from experts(?).

Thought it was George Bush's fault? 

It's a big world, so no debris is understandable.  No mayday call seems strange, though they could have flown directly into a mountain. That having been said, a hijacking and hidden landing seems plausible.

Herb,yep, before CNN gets through with this, it will be!

Awaiting a new Michael Moore documentary concurring this was all on Bush. Note if he did, (you know, not really that much more unbelievable than his others) it will be a favorite for an Academy Award. :frown:


BG

Ok guys, let's not turn this into political BS.

Getting back to the subject - looks like they think the plane flew 4-5 more hours, and was landed?

If that is the case, it sounds like the pilots were in on it (they are muslims), and since it is practically impossible to do what they did on 9/11 now, they decided to steal a plane. They need to find it.

If that's the case I return to an earlier thought . . . where in the hell could it have been landed? It's not like you can just land a 777 in a flat grassy field somewhere (or like there are many grassy fields on the islands around Malaysia).

The middle east/Pakistan/Indonesia has many airports. Remember the plane was going to Beijing so it would have enough fuel to go about 5-6 hours. They also took a big plane, which they'd want for maximum damage. It's almost impossible to hijack a plane these days the way it happened on 9/11, so this may be the alternative.

 I'd look at Muslim nations that have very little government or a govt. that will harbor terrorists. Indonesia, Pakistan, even countries in the Saudi peninsula. Iran may be too far. It will probably be hidden too, maybe in a large hangar. Obviously if this is what happened, it was planned way in advance.

But getting to any of those places unnoticed would be awfully tricky.

They turned off the transponder, and they have been likely looking in the wrong place for the last 5 days. Yes the whole thing is tricky and risky - I hope if this is what happened that they screw up and we find that plane. As for the passengers, I'm not sure we want to know what happened to them in this scenario.   :frown:

Turning off the transponder does not make a plane invisible to radar.  Otherwise all military planes could easily be made to be stealthy simply by not having a transponder or just turning it off.  Most ATC ground stations have the capability to track both primary and secondary targets, which are synchronized.  The primary targets are aircraft not equipped with transponders -- the radar reflection off the aircraft skin.  Secondary targets are aircraft with working transponders.  If this aircraft flew anywhere near a ground station, it easily would have been tracked on radar.  I agree with Clockwork that getting to any the places mentioned unnoticed would be difficult, as they would have been near numerous ground stations enroute, and they even would have been visible to the naked eye (and ear) at some point.  Even assuming that the plane actually flew 4-5 more hours, to stay out of radar range it would have had to stay out over the open ocean away from ground stations.  It is a mystery though, so I guess most anything is possible.

I could buy the Indonesia or Pakistan theory, and I don't think a hangar would be needed. Mesh netting, and lots of it, would suffice. I also think some places don't monitor their radar in hyper-vigilant fashion, so that part of the puzzle might not be a huge issue.

Yes I know that, but I do have a question for you. If they are not looking for it, or this plane isn't targeted, could it have escaped detection? The transponder simply cuts it off from the ATC right? If the plane went off ATC radar, and they only have this theory that it flew for 5 more hours just yesterday, is it possible that it could have escaped detection and hidden somewhere because no one was looking for it so far away?

I am far from an expert, so....grain of salt and all that.  As I mentioned, most ATC ground stations have the capability to track both primary and secondary targets, and the primary targets are those aircraft not equipped with transponders.  Could it have escaped detection?  Yes, especially if the plane stayed outside of radar range for primary targets.  That is, if the plane stayed out over the open ocean, away from any ground stations, then it would not be easy to track.  Once it got anywhere near a ground station, however, then it would ping the radar system as a primary target.  They would not have to be looking for it.  It would be within range of the system and would be detected as a target.  They would be unable to specifically identify it due to the transponder being off, but they certainly would notice and be concerned about an unexpected large plane within their radar range or in their airspace.  But, like I said, I guess anything is possible with the limited confirmed information that is available.

Primary radar has a shorter range than secondary.  If you look at the ranges of the various radars (military and civilian) in the area there is not complete coverage, based on altitude.  Also, in today's world uncoded primary returns tend not to be observed in real time, which is probably why the information came out later in the search. 

As for what happened, don't know.  At first I tended to disregard all the "clutter" but there seems to be a growing set of data that indicates that it did turn west and flew for some period of time.  If, in fact, this occured did the aircraft reach its intend destination or did "they" miscalculate and end up in the water.  Currently I tend to believe the latter but assuming "they" did reach their intended destination, for what purpose? 

I understand and agree when considering "in the area."  But, if that plane flew to a destination that included flight over a lot of land mass, I'm less inclined to think it made it somewhere without detection along the way.  It appears that Chinese satellite information may point to a crash in the water, so there is still a lot of looking left to be done.  I'm guessing the plane is at the bottom of the ocean.

This has been a great thread. I'm glad people who know more than me chimed in with informed commentary. Good stuff.

As an aside, back when I was flying a lot, I flew out of an airport within the Special Flight Rules Area (SFRA) around DC.  So, the use of a transponder was required until out of the area.  Well, I generally flew planes with transponders that were automatic, but not always.  I took off from Manassas one time and forgot to activate the transponder even though I had loaded the right code.  Luckily Manassas is a training airport for both pilots and controllers, so the controllers are pretty nice.  After a couple minutes in the air, I got a call from the tower asking if I was "squawking" the correct code.  So, I quickly checked, switched the transponder on and replied with, "Manassas Tower,...I am now."  The controller actually responded with a chuckle and a thank you.   :biggrin:

What Clock said; information from actual people who know stuff, is quite helpful.

Pirate also raises a good point? What's the point? If you want to destroy a plane, that's not hard. But, why do you want to take one? What's the goal? It may be someone wanted to make a name for himself.

Also, The Philippines are in reach from Kuala Lampur. There are sizeable areas there ideologically similar to Indonesia.

Why take one? So you can have a flying bomb, that's why. It is not so easy to hijack a plane anymore, and even if you did, after 9/11 passengers would not sit still and let it happen.

also...if the plane flew 5 hours in the direction they were going, it could have gone to Pakistan. And we know Pakistan would never harbor terrorists  :rolleyes:

Unfortunately you make a good point Nut. A free plane would make a terrifically effective missile.

Under this theory, this was well-planned.  Deviation from set course was in the middle of the night just as the plane was handed off from Malaysia controllers to Vietnamese controllers.  Plane then made a bee-line for open water over the Indian ocean.  Hard to believe they would fail to calculate the fuel needed to reach their destination over open water. :wtf: :hurl: :frown:

depends on the altitude they were flying?  If "they" were flying normal cruise altitudes their planning was good.  If "they" flew low altitudes, say 10,000 feet or lower "they" are hurt two ways because "they" go slower and use more fuel doing so.  If "they" didn't allow for that, assuming they were flying lower and there are reports "they"were,then ...

True dat, but the engineer in me says that's not a difficult calculation to make. Also, when flying over the open ocean, they could maintain altitude - only need to go low when approaching land, which may well have been the final destination.

If terrorists need a plane (flying bomb), they can buy one. There is no need to take it. Now if it was taken, I would believe we already have a good idea where it is. If that's the case, we'll know it after we practice (a lot) and storm the site.


G

Yeah, not difficult if one has the charts.  Spent a lot of time in a previous life figuring out headwinds vs alt vs fuel flow going west bound in a Charlie 130.  Assume a non ATP pilot doing the planning and the mileage, yours or mine, might be different.

Definitely the Langoliers.

Assuming the plane was hijacked, where would you land it? Something the size of a fully loaded treble seven requires a LONG, VERY HEAVY runway to be put down in a "reusable" condition. Not many of those that aren't under close scrutiny. This sounds like the opening of a Tom Clancy thriller.

It's definitely gonna get interesting. My money is still on "in the drink" though. Why it's there is a different matter.

getting it down wouldn't be much of a problem
Getting airborne again, if that was "their" intention would be another issue
 

The way the Malaysian government is handling the whole thing leaves one to wonder if they're hiding something. Malaysian Airlines has the reputation of being a competent,  professional outfit. Can't say the same for their guvvies. We've already had one instance where a veteran airline captain of Islamic faith deliberately crashed his aircraft for Gawd knows what loony reason. The poor families of the "missing" passengers must be going though sheer hell.

It seems unlikely to me that it got lost after the transponder turned off.   All planes are equipped with GPS nowadays.   It would also be fairly easy to lose the debris if it stayed aloft for a while after the transponder went off.  The ocean is a pretty wide place.

I still think it's highly likely that it crashed into the ocean.  They should IMO make progress on this, but we will see.

Karachi or Islamabad both have airports that it could land in.

That would take cooperation from the Pakistani military at the highest level - I just don't see it. My guess is that satellite photos of Yemen are being closely scrutinized...

I wouldn't rule that out at all!  The ISI (Pakistani intelligence service) created the Taliban and continues to play a double game in Afghanistan to this very day.  After all, Osama was hiding in plain site not far from the "Pakistani West Point", right?

Having said that, it would be nearly impossible to hide the plane landing in those two locations, because we have eyes all over them.  Maybe some dusty strip off the beaten path?

I think we can rule out Yemen...the latest thinking is that it was out of range, based on satellite data.  And for that matter, Pak was at the extreme edge of the range and the plane would have had to fly over India to get to Pak anyway.

See the map at the bottom of this link:

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/03/world/malaysia-flight-map/index.html?hpt=bosread

To get to Pak, which appears to be at the edge of the range in that map, they would have to fly over India and what are the odds that the Indians would not notice the plane flying over their country, lol.  You think maybe the Indians would like to catch the Pakistanis in the act, perhaps?    :naughty:

Burma/Myanmar is pretty lawless, so that's an option, but I think it's in the Indian Ocean somewhere.

Looking at the map again, the island of Java in Indonesia would be a strong possibility, but one would think radar covers most of the coast of that island...perhaps there are gaps though.

Hot off the presses...Malaysian PM now says they think it was definitely deliberate and it's now considered certain that the aircraft headed west...the satellite data has been confirmed.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

"This new satellite information has a significant impact on the nature and scope of the search operation," he said.
Investigators, he said, have confirmed by looking at the raw satellite data that the plane in question was the Malaysia Airlines jet.
The same conclusion was reached by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, the British Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the Malaysian authorities, all of whom were working separately with the same data, he said.

"Due to the type of satellite data, we are unable to confirm the precise location of the plane when it last made contact with the satellite," Najib said.
Because the northern parts of the traffic corridor include some tightly guarded airspace over India, Pakistan, and even some U.S. installations in Afghanistan, U.S. authorities believe it more likely the aircraft crashed into waters outside of the reach of radar south of India, one U.S. official told CNN. If it had flown farther north, it's likely it would have been detected by radar.

Pirate...the article I link in the previous post states that there is evidence the plane climbed to 43,000 feet.  The limit on altitude is ... I think, 30-35,000 feet?  Can't recall exactly...but I do know it's mostly related to pressurization issues.  Would a plane at a higher altitude than the reg still have better range?  I am pretty sure it would, though the gain might be marginal.

Malaysian military radar showed the plane climbing to 45,000 feet -- which is above its approved altitude limit -- soon after disappearing from civilian radar screens and then dropping to 23,000 feet before climbing again, the official said.

Wanna help with the investigation?  :biggrin:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/us/malaysia-airlines-plane-crowdsourcing-search/index.html?hpt=bosread

Operational ceiling for the A/C is around 41000 feet; at that point, the speed range between stalling out, due to low speed and totally losing control effectiveness due to high speed is about 10 MPH; not a place you want to be.

Found it on page 23 in the link.

http://www.deltava.org/library/B777%20Manual.pdf

They supposedly had 7.5 hours of fuel left...what altitude and cruising speed that was based on, I have no idea.  But if they cruised at 45,000 feet, the optimal cruise speed was around 455 knots (extrapolating from 41000 feet).  Chop an hour off the 7.5 of fuel for descent and landing and uncertainty in what cruise altitude it was calculated at, and they could have gone about 2950 nautical miles...round up to 3000 for convenience.

Looking at the map and last known location, they could indeed have reached Yemen or Somalia...or flown due west to the south of India and turned north to just barely make the southern coast of Iran.

The two men with false passports were Iranian nationals.

Hmmmmmm.....

About an hour after I read that this morning, it hit me!         :dielaughing:

Well that would extend the range based on 6.5 hours of fuel by about 42 nautical miles...so might as well just say 3000 nautical miles is a conservative estimate of range including a 45 min reserve.  Hijackers might not care about the reserve.

Also looks like the final heading was 280 or 10 deg north of west, FWIW...they could easily have changed heading.

ZBR...?   :biggrin:

One last thing....they are saying that the plane had to be ON the red line at 8:10 AM Malaysian time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MH370_last_ping_corridors.jpg

That means they trust the clock on the plane to be accurate to at least a 1,000th of a second.  The time delay between the red line and the satellite is about 120 milliseconds. 

If the satellite data is accurate the plane would seem much more likely to be on the northern red line...perhaps flying through Burma/Myanmar and then skimming the Himalyan mountains IF it was piloted the whole way.

If it's on the southern line, then it would have to be because it wandered around to avoid detection and then turned north to Indonesia...otherwise it has no where to land.

That's my 0.02 anyway....

India speaks up: http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-jet-couldn-t-flown-over-airspace-says-015126330.html.  I agree.

Yes, but...(see below) could they have skimmed through the small part of India east of Bangladesh, next to Myanmar, and then skimmed the Himalayan mountains?  That at least seems possible to me, though the Himalyans are supposed to be fairly dangerous to fly over due to updrafts and turbulence.

Senior Indian military officers admitted there were "a few gaps" in India's civil and military radar networks, but stressed it would be "virtually impossible" for a jetliner to fly undetected across the Indian mainland.
"The five Airports Authority of India radars at Delhi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Mumbai are integrated with IAF's air defence network. The possibility is far-fetched," said an officer.

It does seem more likely to be in the Indian Ocean, as some American officials stated just this morning.  But I wouldn't rule the land route out completely.

They were saying yesterday they might be able to get an ACARS ping on another satellite, which would allow them to triangulate and nail down a time and position to within ~ 100 km.  That would pretty much clear things up if they can do it.

Having called off the search in the initial area fairly early (a weeklong search is not very long for such a major disaster), it makes me wonder if the powers that be actually know where this plane is. If it is in a hanger or runway somewhere then I would suspect some kind of clandestine operation by a bunch of Navy Seals is underway. That being said, I really think it's in the drink.