Beijing-bound MAS plane carrying 239 people missing as of 20 mins ago.

reply to post by auroraaus


I thought that myself earlier about whether that would be normal or not. All I could think of is that the airline must make more money by taking 23 less passengers and taking excess cargo instead. Would be good to find out which companies may be importing/exporting them? Might be 3-4 tonnes of heroin stashed in them for all we know lol.

reply to post by auroraaus


I agree. Plus, it's the other way around. Just in the last week alone I've read something on ATS and heard it repeated on a news channel.

Where there deadhead pilots in the cockpit jump seats that do not appear on the flight manifest?

reply to post by drwill


I'm not sure about a hiding place. It just seems bizarre (to me) that several tonnes of fruit are being transported to another country on a passenger plane. What of quarantine and customs upon entering China? I wouldn't know, I haven't flown there before. Here in Australia, there's absolutely no fruit and vegies, no organic material etc allowed through customs.

Now, I want a mangosteen. Where can I buy mangosteens?!

Just a comment given the craziness of this plane disappearance. I just feel that in past plane accidents or events, there seemed to be much more of an international cohesion and unity in terms of investigation and search. This event seems so fragmented, so rife with miscommunication and veiled animosity (in my opinion), that there must be massive amounts of events happening behind the scenes. I hope the public scrutiny and pressure continues, as whatever really happened or is happening must be incredibly important for everyone to know - even if it ends up being just an accident, I'm sure great light will be shed on the scope of media and government firewalling of the public from the real goings on. I personally really appreciate the members' enthusiasm - this event just seems very significant.

China rules out hijack by Chinese passengers

There is no evidence Chinese passengers were involved in a hijack or terror attack on a Malaysia Airlines flight that vanished 10 days ago, state media quoted China's ambassador to Malaysia as saying on Tuesday.
Ambassador Huang Huikang told Chinese reporters that Beijing had carried out a detailed investigation of the Chinese passengers and could rule out their involvement, state television said on one of its official microblogs.
Huang said a lot of the information involved criminal matters which was "not suitable to publicise" but gave no other details.
"The probe into the incident's cause is not suitable to be conducted in a high-profile way," he said.

Interesting about criminal matters...

Edit to add:

Huang said there were multiple reasons for the confusion and rumours about what had happened to the aircraft, including Malaysia's "lack of experience".

Now there's a barb!

A lot of points as I make notes reading through the thread.

Malaysia Airlines has set up operations centres in both Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, to care for the families of the crew members and passengers.

MAS has allocated each family a caregiver, who will be on 24hours duty. They have sent more than 100 staff and caregivers to Beijing.

The airline gives daily briefings to the families. They provide counselling sessions. And they contact families, that have elected not to come to Malaysia, between two and three times a day.

The news from here is that MAS have offered to pay for a continued stay at the hotel here in Beijing, or to fly the family members to KL Malaysia or to pay for their trip home. So, fair play to them, they did step up and continue to look after the families.

I am not a pilot nor have I ever been anything other than a passenger in an aircracft. However, there is a lot of posted quotes around page 213/214 about a 5000 foot altitude and a few where the quote says a DROP of 5000 feet altitude. I just want to point out that the two are totally different and we should be careful (and the MSM need to be careful too) which one is used and which is correct. Each can mean a completely different thing when investigating a disappearance like this. An altitude of 5000 feet means that the pilot may be trying to fly under the radar, but a drop in altitude of 5000 feet may have no such implications.

The image with the white plane and the pixellated plane -
The pixellated plane would have made a crash route if it is on the ground, so I dont think this is a real image but a 'ghost' image as has been seen in other google maps and suchlike. Planes like that do not just drop vertically out of the sky without some forward motion and causing a track on the ground where it hit.

The Malaysian government categorically denied raiding the pilots home early in the investigation, yet in the recent Press Conference they say the police raided it twice once on the Sunday 9th and once later to retrieve the simulator.

[speculation] It would be easy for the military to fly an (electronically) unmarked plane and to send out signals copied from a commercial jet plane. This would make it look as if the flight was still in the air. A localised device similar to what reduced the steel and concrete World Trade Building to dust (pieces no larger than a hankerchief) would easily reduce a jet liner and all the passengers and cargo to dust which would not show anything much unusual on the sea surface and would sink pretty soon. [/speculation]

Dont forget, in the early days, there were reports of another unknown plane moving away from the MH370 at a much faster rate. I think we need to investigate that more too.

Also in the earlier days, there was a report of a heavy cargo taking up weight on the flight. ( mikeultra: ) If there were 23 spare seats to capacity and were on standby who could not board due to weight being taken up with this cargo. Can we investigate what this was or if it is true please? (OK, these were mangosteens) I think this may have a BIG influence on the outcome of this investigation. Are there still a total of 250 seats in the ER extended range version of the plane?

Cargo labelled "magosteens" containing what I wonder? Anything illegal or dangerous is not going to be labelled "Hazardous" is it?

As I understand it from the pro pilots forum, planes flying into China often have been fuelled for the return journey as well. This gives us a LOT more fuel and would not be mentioned in the press for fear of offending the Chinese who are needed for their radar and search help capabilities. If the extra weight was extra fuel (as suggested by liteonit6969 here ) then they could be landing anywhere (and probably off the beaten track in a desert or forest clearing) and all they have to do is add the extra fuel when they land.

sy.gunson:

As I understand it the aircraft disappeared from military primary radar at 45,000ft then reappeared at 02:40am returning westbound from the Gulf of Thailand at 23,000ft.

I dont think this has been answered in this thread although it has been discussed. Can the SIZE of an aircraft be determined by radar? From what I have picked up it seems not, so why would an image of an aircraft suddenly be picked up flying at 23,000 feet. Like the comms was suddenly switched on just as suddenly as it went off perhaps?

Why would the US send their ship away from the search area back to the area it was prior to the search? Because they have found conclusive proof the plane is on land somewhere.

reply to post by auroraaus


Amazon sells them for a pretty penny. The cargo hold must have been pungent!
Very strange cargo, indeed, and I wonder about quarantine and regulations. My 86 year old mother smuggled a Swiss sausage in her suitcase from Zurich to the US, and a drug dog came perilously close but moved on.

Don't many of the passenger flights also carry cargo so it would not be unusual.

I flew into Beijing the other day and there were more sniffer dogs there than I have ever seen before. Very visible and a very visible and repeated in-flight video played just before landing warning us of what would happen if we brought in stuff we shouldn't.

I still think its important to be paractical about the best area the flight may have gone to avoid other air traffic, remember its supposedly flying invisible without radar meening it cant be seen, and it cant see other aircraft also, this makes for a doubly dangerious situation.

reply to post by qmantoo


That's interesting and daunting, all at once. Yet mangosteens were on their merry way, along with potential funguses, icky plant diseases, and insects, perhaps not indigenous.

reply to post by WanDash


Yeah there are a couple of weird things happening on flight radar. Just watching two planes heading towards Malaysia. Flight EVA255 overtook a plane that has no squark, the did a complete 180 turn heading back in the flight direction it came from. It has overtaken another plane that has been stationary for some 10 min. Rolling over the plane with the mouse showed no squawk. Now plane is stationary over the South China sea. Have thought it may be a search plane.

Here is another long fetched idea "please dont yawn" how about if the plane is to be used as a weapon, its been flown due east and will be used as an attck on north korea, in an attempt to kick them into using thier nukes, this aswel as russia kicking back, would no doubt please the NWO as they seek mass confusion.

Rolling over the plane with the mouse showed no squawk. Now plane is stationary over the South China sea. Have thought it may be a search plane.

Maybe helicopters from military search ships? Have these got these kind of comms as well? It maybe possible although I dont know if they fly high enough to be picked up. What is the resolution of the radar? Could they be circling and appear stationary on the map?

reply to post by qmantoo


Sometimes FR can stick waiting to catch up, this can happen due to load constraints and internet sinal ability, mine does this quite abit, sometimes a plane will turn round and give the impression its flying backwards, its settles back down after a little while, also if your not zoomed in close enough to give a good signal to click on, this can play up abit.

reply to post by qmantoo

Hi,
I doubled checked the seating capacity on the 777-200 Extended Range. I was wrong on my previous post saying it was 250. It's actually 282. So 282 - 239 souls on board = 43 empty seats. 43 x 150lbs. = 6450 lbs. of gold in the cargo hold (possibly).

The carrier’s Boeing 777-200ER has a total seating of 282 seats. This includes 35 in Business Class and 247 Economy Class seats. The Business Class seats offers on the aircraft are lie-flat seats and are configured into a 2-3-2 seating position. Seats pitch of 62.0’ and a width of 18.5’. Features and facilities in the aircraft’s Business Class include a light preset 10 minutes massage, an in-seat power outlet for PC and other personal electronic devices, a 10.4-inch touch screen TV, satellite telephone and LED reading light. On the other hand, the aircraft’s Economy Class seats are configured into a 2-5-2 seating which is different from most major airlines. These seats offer adjustable reclining positions, footrest, lumbar support, headrest and retractable armrest. A 6.5-inch in-seat personal TV, individual overhead reading light and a coat hook is available at each seat. 34.0’pitch and 17.0’ wide is one of the widest Economy Class among all international airlines.

sunnaero.blogspot.com...



EDIT: Here is how far an extended range 777-200 can fly.

In 1997, the carrier’s Boeing 777-200ER aircraft once hold the record for the world's longest non-commercial non-stop flight, flying from Boeing Field in Seattle to Kuala Lumpur, flying eastward and pass over the European and African continents.

sunnaero.blogspot.com...

UKGuy1805
Here is another long fetched idea "please dont yawn" how about if the plane is to be used as a weapon, its been flown due east and will be used as an attck on north korea, in an attempt to kick them into using thier nukes, this aswel as russia kicking back, would no doubt please the NWO as they seek mass confusion.

When they keep pointing everywhere but China, you know that's where it is. I kept getting hammered by some "experts" here that the plane was down and out, exploded into millions of pieces from "catastrophic failure", yet now we know that didn't happen. I was told that it couldn't fly to China because "radar would have tracked it" and "they would have to dodge all military craft in the area", yet we now know that primary radar would have a difficult time even knowing what elevation the plane was at much less anything else. I was also told it couldn't have flown over Vietnam because primary radar would have picked it up, yet we're told it flew back over Malaysia and was only discovered to have done so days later after reviewing radar data. So why couldn't it have flown over Vietnam? It was already scheduled to do so.

So I still stand by my belief that who ever put out that initial report saw it sitting on the ground in Nanming China and it got there escorted by Chinese military and it flew over Vietnam as the recorded flight path allowed for. We know the Chinese received some kind of warning about potential hijackings. We know a Chinese airline sold the tickets to two passengers with stolen passports. We know the plane was already bound for China. We also know a prior hijacking of a plane headed to Beijing occurred on the same date in 2008 and that quite a few more attempts were made subsequent to that. We know the Chinese have provided some misinformation during the search for this plane. The Chinese issued a directive that all reporting on this plane must be cleared by them, which further solidifies my belief.

It didn't land in Pakistan and that pilot didn't commit suicide because his buddy went to jail. No one does something like that unless they leave a clear message and really, no one does that period. And it's not hidden on some remote airfield on some obscure island. It would have been found by now. So for what ever reason, the Chinese have not found it necessary to release the information that they have the plane and we don't know why the Malaysians or even the US government haven't released this information, for clearly they would know this occurred and probably in real time.

reply to post by sy.gunson


Malaysian officials stated (leaked?) that the pilots of 370 didn't request to fly together. Is it possible that someone behind-the-scenes put these pilots on this flight, knowing that one had a flight sim and the other had entertained blondes in the cockpit?

Bilk22
...So for what ever reason, the Chinese have not found it necessary to release the information that they have the plane and we don't know why the Malaysians or even the US government haven't released this information, for clearly they would know this occurred and probably in real time.

That's because the Chinese officials that know...have mangosteen stains all over their mouths, hands, shirts, and...ties.
Takes a while to clean up after a...mangosteen buzz.