News Contact lost with 777-200ER of Malaysia Airlines

[Quick_Nick]

If the hijackers wanted only some cargo or person onboard a survivable crash landing may be acceptable.
An abandoned WW II or Vietnam war era US airforce base may have runway long and strong enough to support 777 landing and takeoff however I bet such places were checked as soon as it become suspected plane may be hijacked.

Finding accomplices who run an airport and can tell investigators "nope, nothing in these hangars" seems easy. It's unlikely that investigators would have the authority or motivation to perform a thorough search themselves of every possible airport. I assume the best they can do is call up the operators of a few and ask if they have seen anything suspicious.

 

[garyw]

Another day, another map and questions about the effectiveness of Malaysian air defence.

 

[MattBaker]

If the hijackers wanted only some cargo or person onboard a survivable crash landing may be acceptable.

According to the latest press conference they mentioned potentially valuable cargo. Four tons of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangosteen"]mangosteens[/ame]. Which is worth a low six-digit sum, if even that much. Doesn't seem like it's worth the effort.

Of course this does not have to be the only cargo. Even a MicroSD card can be worth millions or even billions and can you keep track if one of those was on your plane? Probably not.

 

[Eccentrus]

why the hell four tons of manggis would worth millions? Sometimes I just don't understand the prices of simple fruits

 

[MattBaker]

why the hell four tons of manggis would worth millions? Sometimes I just don't understand the prices of simple fruits

A hundred grand I meant, is six-digit million and five-digit is hundred thousand? Dammit brain, get your stuff together.

But yeah, I took the figure from wikipedia talking about up to $45. But as far as I understood that depends a lot on quality, so probably not more than the worth of a new car.

 

[garyw]

the search radius is vast:

 

[Yoda]

Do you guys seriously think they would release the latest up to date into the public if they are dealing with a potential hijacking / terrorist situation ???
There is probably a lot more to this ( and a lot more data available) than we know ( or will ever know).
We are beeing "fed" what they want us to know; probably the tip of the iceberg as far as data available to them.

 

[kamaz]

According to the latest press conference they mentioned potentially valuable cargo. Four tons of mangosteens.

That's not really marketable. Cargo worth stealing has to be marketable and untraceable, i.e. gold or drugs.

 

[Urwumpe]

Do you guys seriously think they would release the latest up to date into the public if they are dealing with a potential hijacking / terrorist situation ???
There is probably a lot more to this ( and a lot more data available) than we know ( or will ever know).
We are beeing "fed" what they want us to know; probably the tip of the iceberg as far as data available to them.

Probably you don't know how such investigations work.

They are really a black hole from the outside, sucking all information in, but releasing only those bits, that have been confirmed by additional research.

In the end, when the investigation closes, the report will contain it all. But before the report is done, professional investigators will not speculate in public.

That is what we do in the forum, no need for competition.

 

[Hielor]

An interesting theory:
http://keithledgerwood.tumblr.com/p...ysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Now THAT makes sense. Ballsy, but it would be much more likely to work than any other theory I've seen. Now the question becomes, who was at the controls for this? That is one skilled and experienced pilot.

 

[garyw]

An interesting theory:
http://keithledgerwood.tumblr.com/p...ysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68

Interesting but what is the motive?

 

[Artlav]

Interesting. That does sound more plausible than other 007 theories out there.
However, the questions of why? and why not? remain.

Why do this?
Why not make any ransom claims?

It would make sense if there were some valuable cargo on board.
China is known to quietly buy out gold from everywhere they can get it - could there have been a load of gold on the plane, quietly being shipped on some government affair?

The Freescale Semiconductor employees on board are also a potential target, but this sounds too high profile for a mere industrial espionage - the cost of failure would be everything for the perpetrator. Business don't usually deal in all-or-nothing decisions like that.

Something even more valuable, like plutonium or even complete nuclear warheads don't seem too plausible, given the plane's departure location.
And this would have likely lit up the concerned military like a christmas tree, of which there are no signs.

 

[MattBaker]

Now the question becomes, who was at the controls for this? That is one skilled and experienced pilot.

Well, the pilot had his own "flight simulator" (back in my days we called it simpit!:rant and logged thousands of hours in actual planes, so...he's surely up to the task and anyone could have some motive as well as not having one.

Although I'm missing one piece on this scenario. Youd obviously have to plan it beforehand. But what happens if one of both has a delay, there's bad weather over the Gulf of Bengal, you're getting scrambled on your way across Malaysia...there are a lot of factors that could ruin this plan and you can't abort your first try. If you try this everything has to work out but I feel like it wouldn't.

 

[fred18]

An interesting theory:
http://keithledgerwood.tumblr.com/p...ysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68

That's very interesting!

Now if they did it once, with such an high level of preparation and precision they can do it again right? so if they find the way to get in the shadow of another 777 properly they can get to one of the major cities and simply crash down with a nuclear bomb inside... if that's possible I hope that no one had such a terrible idea in mind :WTF:

 

[Cairan]

EXCLUSIVE!

We have footage from the Malaysian military radar outpost operator who last detected flight MH370 on primary radar!

http://youtu.be/9PUoW_55yNg

---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:26 PM ----------

An interesting theory:
http://keithledgerwood.tumblr.com/p...ysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68

Well that would make sense... Now in order to accomplish this, you'd need to be close enough that the secondary radars wouldn't discriminate between the two lumps of metals in the air and consider the active transponder reply as the only answer needed from this echo.

If it was me, I'd fly slightly higher, behind and to the side of the aircraft so that

a) being behind it the pilots of the plane in front wouldn't see me due to the poor visibility astern and lack of rear view mirrors in cockpits

b) being slightly higher, I wouldn't be impacted by the trailing vortex

c) being slightly to the side, I would have the other aircraft in sight from the side cockpit windows, maybe even just seeing the wingtips of the airplane in front, so I wouldn't collide with it's tail.

Now the question is: What is the angular seperatation required for a secondary radar to discriminate two separate targets? What about primary radar's minimum angular resolution?

 

[Evil_Onyx]

Now the question is: What is the angular seperatation required for a secondary radar to discriminate two separate targets? What about primary radar's minimum angular resolution?

To put it simply, that kind of info is classified.

But, In it depends on what Radar system is used and how far from the radar site the contact is.

An E-3 AWACS would have been able to spot that something was wrong, and sent some aircraft to investigate. Other modern airborne surveillance systems could do it too.
With the presence of military over Afghanistan a close flying formation of civilian aircraft would have been intercepted so i doubt that it made it that far.

 

[Urwumpe]

Many better military radar systems can also tell two close flying aircraft apart even at high distance, by analysing how the blip returns the radar pulse, especially when the radar pulse is modulated.

But you will rarely see such capabilities in civilian radar systems, simply because the need doesn't exist.

Also, you can't fly in close formation with another jet without either:

• Not seeing the other plane.
• Getting seen and photographed by passengers of the other jet
• Getting torn into pieces by the wake turbulence

You could maybe try to fly below and behind it, like during aerial refueling, but even that would be one hell of a ride.

 

[Cairan]

Wake turbulence is going to be mainly around the wing tips (as well as marginally from the tail's elevator tips), and tends to descend rather than ascend...

Aerial refueling is from behind and below to make sure the refueled aircraft has a nice unobstructed view of the tanker, but it occurs well below the height of the wake vortex... Nothing precludes you from flying slightly higher, above it's tail.

Nothing ... Except cockpit visibility of the plane chasing from behind, hence the need to be slightly off-axis if you are above the front plane.

As for the visibility, at the time of the flight the moon was already past zenith and going to set to the west, the Singapore airlines was flying into the "moonset", and you could always switch off the nav lights and strobes, pulling the breakers if needed...

 

[Urwumpe]

Wake turbulence is going to be mainly around the wing tips (as well as marginally from the tail's elevator tips), and tends to descend rather than ascend...

It descends at mere 90 meters per minute and stabilizes 250 meters below the aircraft after a while. if you fly close enough to appear as one aircraft, you can assume the wake turbulence to be slightly above the wings of the first aircraft.