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

To alleviate speculation regarding 777 transponder settings, here is a picture of the unit.

I don't think many airlines have even entertained the idea of one of their own flight crews highjacking their own plane.

I can see LoJack being installed in a few planes now though.

I found this article about a problem with Boeing 777 fuel icing problems from 2008. Could this have been an issue with MH370? The article mentions Rolls Royce engines...

Experts have warned there is a "high probability" that a fault which caused a British Airways jet to crash-land at Heathrow could hit other Boeing 777s. US air accident investigators called for a component to be redesigned after a Delta Air Lines plane reportedly encountered a similar problem. Manufacturers Rolls-Royce say the new part should be ready within the year. It comes after tests proved a build-up of ice in the engine was the most likely cause of the Heathrow crash.

news.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by Mikeultra


www.news.com.au... 2ev-1226858579129

EYEWITNESSES claim to have seen a low-flying jumbo jet “with red stripes” similar to that of a missing Malaysia Airlines jet flying over their houses in the Maldives, local media reports.
The Maldivian daily newspaper Haveeru reports residents described a white aircraft with red markings similar to the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 passing overhead about 6.15am on March 8.
The claims, which have not been confirmed, follow reports of radar and satellite signals indicating the missing airliner could have followed a track in that general direction.
The holiday islands are about halfway between Malaysia and the east coast of Africa.
It’s about 3200 kilometres from Malaysia - placing it at the extreme edge of how far flight MH370 could travel.

6.15 am then another 350NM to DG shut down at 8.11...... seems feasible imo

Arbitrageur
Do they turn the transponder off when the arrive at the gate? The normally shut off the engines when they arrive at the gate. Maybe it could be designed to run while the engine was running? At least in my experience, when the engines are operating is when it's needed.

Someone said the reason it can be turned off is for fire control, but I'm not sure if that's a good enough reason, since I never heard of a fire control off-switch for the black boxes. The other thing I noticed in the video I posted showing how to turn the transponder off, is that the "off" position wasn't really off....it said "STBY" so that would imply to me the power isn't completely off, that it's just not transmitting, and it kind of kills the fire control argument. He said the three transponder switch modes were "standby", "auto" and "on".

I would think this episode has some aircraft designers and aviation officials thinking about how aircraft tracking can be improved in cases like this.

edit on 18-3-2014 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

Pilots generally would always turn off transponders on the ground at airports because they would overwhelm air traffic controllers with all those signals overwhelming them . Does not happen as much now as pilots now use the moving map display,this takes the transponder data and then shows them the location of all planes on the ground, in order to guide them around airports without any incidents occurring.

It is something that is an option and has been and will be as long as peopl fly planes.
They may look at it now but I am not sure

Commercial airliners have two transponders and there are two switches or dials in the cockpit. One on the right, one of the left, that control one or the other. When one is on, the other is usually in the standby position

In order to turn off a transponder, the pilot must turn the knob with multiple positions and select the “off” mode or setting, The other transponder will not automatically activate if the first one is shut down another knob would alsoa additionally have to be turned into position.
In the case of the missing plane, it appears one transponder was turned off, and the second not activated.

Erin Burnett on CNN is discussing "theories" on the internet....hmm, looks like her intern/s have been
reading a few of the great threads on ATS. Except for Jim Tilmon, who is my fave, her expert panel sucks.

As time passes Im kind of thinking maybe it was an accident...a pilot posted his opinion on google plus and said it makes sense to turn back to the nearest/safest runway in case of emergency.....what if it took 7 hours for the water to finally affect the object that gives off the alive signal?

reply to post by qd22vcc


Won't know til black box is found. Apparently its not affected by anything. Who knows....maybe treasure hunters will take up the chase in 20 years. If enough rumors get started about the cargo they may just fond it before we do.

reply to post by Vasa Croe


Yeah...that box.....hope they find it sooner than 20 yrs but if they really don't have a clue where its at then 20 yrs probably a good time frame lol

Not sure if I saw this posted already but Thailand did not take action bc it wasnt a threat? So an unidentified plane flies through and you dont consider that a threat? Did they know what plane it was or ?

ARTICLE

So this is what I'm understanding so far. . . .

The plane went up to 45K feet to possibly knock out and kill the passengers after the pilot(?) decompressed the plane.

Then they changed course and flew to an unknown destination to(?) retrofit, repaint the plane, throw a dirty nuke in it.

Or

It crashed.

Mystery. . . .

reply to post by beezzer


Or the cockpit controls were on fire and the pilot flew up so high as there is less oxygen and the fire would not spread so much.
Or so many other theories and speculation, it is a real mystery at this moment.
It really is the not knowing that is super fueling the conspiracies though.
Once it reappears in the Gobi Desert balancing on the nose cone, we can put it to bed.

This news just up, apologies if posted already.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim admits MH370 pilot is in-law's relative!

"When asked on Monday whether he knew Zaharie, Anwar replied: "I don't recollect the name"
U-turn as Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim admits MH370 pilot is in-law's relative

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has admitted the missing plane's captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, is a relative of his daughter in-law, contradicting comments he made a day earlier.

"I am not denying that he [Zaharie] is related to one of my in-laws and that I have met him on several occasions," he was quoted by The Straits Times as saying.
www.scmp.com...

Makes ya go hmmmm....

stargatetravels
Pilots generally would always turn off transponders on the ground at airports because they would overwhelm air traffic controllers with all those signals overwhelming them .

I thought they needed to leave the transponders on even after landing so the ground traffic controllers can guide them to their gate without any collisions?

qd22vcc
Not sure if I saw this posted already but Thailand did not take action bc it wasnt a threat? So an unidentified plane flies through and you dont consider that a threat? Did they know what plane it was or ?

ARTICLE

If it was headed to Bangkok where it could fly into some buildings it might be a threat and they might have taken action then. But the southern part of Thailand probably has tourism as its biggest industry, so while it would be unfortunate if it crashed into a hotel, they probably wouldn't shoot it down first to prevent that. If it was heading for Bangkok it might be a different story and they might shoot it down if they thought it was a threat.

Center pedestal of 777, showing location of transponder

www.meriweather.com...

There is new information now that the Plane was seen by Maldiv Islanders heading towards Diego Garcia

The pilot even had Diego Garcia runway and co-ordinates programmed into his homemade simulator for practice runs

reply to post by Mikeultra


hi Mike, I think you refer to British Airways flight 038 which crashed at Heathrow when engines retarded to idle on approach.

Heathrow crash

I am very unpopular because I have never accepted the fuel icing theory blocking fuel lines as it could never be replicated or demonstrated and there was no history of similar events.

The unpopular theory is one of electrical interference causing what is nowadays termed auto-throttle rollback. manufacturers and many airline pilots refuse to acknowledge the possibility, but there other crashes which seem very similar including the Asiana B777 crash at San Francisco or the Turkish Airlines B737 crash at Schipol. The Egyptair crash which dived into the Atlantic may also be auto-throttle Rollback however the official investigation there called it pilot suicide. Egyptian investigators totally disagreed.


Asiana Flt 214
Turkish THY1951
Egyptair Flt 990

My thought on the matter is that there appears to be a fundamentally similar recurring problem with aircraft electronics going haywire and in these instances retarding engine thrust without pilot commands.

Whether they are the same direct issue with MH370 we don't know and can't figure out without recovering the wreckage.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Here you are

link

rabourby
I find tomnod very very frustrating
Can you select a location from a map to look at as appose just looking at what is loaded up ?

Yes, apparently as already posted, there is a post on ATS here and I think you have to replace the final number in the URL with the number of the map

take out the space after the http: below before you paste the URL into your browser
http: //www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/malaysiaairsar2014/map/522968

reply to post by beezzer


or maybe it was an accident that kills passengers, and leaving only pilots as lone survivors.

and they decided to run away with the plane because if they just went back and report about the incident, maybe they could be accused as murderers/terrorists which is quite common today.

peace