Tomnod.com Sighting .... Wtf is this plane doing here? Could this be Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 ?

squittles
but alerting CNN, etc, is almost certainly overkill ...

Alerting the reporters that there is a 'picture of interest' is smart.
It gives the info to those who can dismiss it or confirm it.
It gives those that think this picture is important an outlet to ease their conscience.
It's all good.

reply to post by FlyersFan


I know your contacts are better(or can achieve more) than mine

It looks to be Veer Savarkar International Airport that's located in Port Blair. Unfortunately I'm at work and we Geo-filter out all offshore hosted servers with our firewalls, so I can't check the arrival schedule for 3/12/14 to cross reference the time with any inbound approaching flights. Any of you aviation guys and gals out there care to take a whack at it?

The photo was taken on 3/12/14 4:49 AM, no timezone given, but it looks like sun-up to me so it's more than likely in the timezone local to that area, which would be UTC/GMT +5:30 hours.

I have to agree that the Tomnod image does not look like a 777. Due to its location, it is probably one of the smaller Indian airways jets. Check out this link with specs and image of their jets. OP's image fits their specs more.

If someone is able to share the pic and link here for me, others will see how it could be confused. Thank you.



Edit add: Sorry, I am unable to get the links to work for Wikipedia now...I had googled Indian Airways and seen that their planes look more like the Ops image. (sigh)

The date of the image is march 12th, 5 days after the plane disappeared. It appears to be in flight and it would be much more suspicious if there was not a runway in its direct flight path.

Here is the runway

I am pretty confident this is just a flight landing at its intended location on march 12th.

reply to post by drewlander


That could actually fuel the argument ...a plane of this size would need a runway in my opinion.

reply to post by drewlander


I'm with you on that one, Occam's Razor! I just found it very weird to see a plane caught in-flight with that much definition and little signs of motion blur. Whatever satellite was taking those pictures, must be a doozy!

parad0x122
reply to post by drewlander

 

I'm with you on that one, Occam's Razor! I just found it very weird to see a plane caught in-flight with that much definition and little signs of motion blur. Whatever satellite was taking those pictures, must be a doozy!

And it proves beyond a shadow that satellites CAN take pictures with sufficient clarity to show airplanes of this size. And OK, this was discussed and as a result, eliminated. But that's how science works. Edison tried 1,000 different materials before he found one that made light bulbs work. If he'd never tried one that did not work, he never would have found one that did.

Unless it's some kind of plankton blooming i think I stumbled upon some huge oil slicks stretching at least a kilometer in width and something which looks like raft on Tomnod.
Here are a few screen shots.

Oil slicks?

Zoomed


Raft???

Zoomed


Thoughts guys please???

zilebeliveunknown
Unless it's some kind of plankton blooming i think I stumbled upon some huge oil slicks stretching at least a kilometer in width and something which looks like raft on Tomnod.
Here are a few screen shots.

Oil slicks?

Zoomed

Raft???

Zoomed

Thoughts guys please???

I think the orange thing is a rescue speedboat - you can see that it's carved a path through the oil or whatever it is.

Have you tried following the oil to where it is coming from - maybe a ship or oil tanker?

zilebeliveunknown
Unless it's some kind of plankton blooming i think I stumbled upon some huge oil slicks stretching at least a kilometer in width and something which looks like raft on Tomnod.
Here are a few screen shots.

Oil slicks?

Thoughts guys please???

Saw these yesterday - would have nice to been able to see the "source" of the substance - it seems to flow from west to east, and the map cuts off. My guess is an oil leak of some kind, like from an oil rig or a sunken ship, but someone else thought it an algae bloom. They go for miles ...

The shot in the last two is what made me think it wasn't important - you can see by the "cut" in the substance trail that the object is under propulsion - probably a fishing boat, or a patrol boat. And presumably, that boat would have noticed the trails, and investigated it.

The other thing is that these are in the S. China Sea, which at least for the moment has been dismissed as a potential location for the a/c. Anyway, others have noticed it (I saw it posted on a different board), so tag it as an oil slick, and let the tomnod guys figure it out.

reply to post by parad0x122


That doesn't look like its a 777-200 the wings of the 777 have more of an angle on the rear of the wings + the color of the back of the plane doesn't match Malaysia Airlines. Good try but I don't think that's the plane :-(

reply to post by stormcell

I think the orange thing is a rescue speedboat - you can see that it's carved a path through the oil or whatever it is.

Yeah that crossed my mind, but to me it doesn't look like a boat the shape is kinda rectangular and the orange colour which would suggest it was meant to be noticeable.

Have you tried following the oil to where it is coming from - maybe a ship or oil tanker?

I tried to follow the 'oil slicks' but it seems it stops suddenly on both sides.

After magnifying the image up to 1000x I found a plane with a broken tail separated from the main body, but it looks like somehow it was dropped down “vertically” since there are no visible tracks behind it.

Looks strange to me..

reply to post by parad0x122

I plugged the coordinates into Google Earth and found that this airplane is exactly 4.5 miles away from an airport directly in line with the planes heading. Think it may just be an airplane coming in for a landing? Maybe?

Does anyone have a picture they can post? I can't get onto Tomnod.

parad0x122

Tomnod Map #655896

Lat: 11.577303 Long: 92.680922

Nayashahar RV, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India 744105

Does anybody know if MEDIA has covered it? This is HUGE and should ALREADY be all over the Associated Press by now!

reply to post by schuyler


It is not uncommon at all for satellites to capture aircraft in flight. One can find numerous examples of this on Google Earth. Pictures are usually crystal clear as well. The reason for the clarity is due in part to the long focal length and obviously exquisite polishing on lens and mirror equipment onboard.

As a matter of fact, I think at one point Google even asked its user community to refrain from calling in aircraft as "crashed" when they were actually most likely just in-flight.

No burn marks?

reply to post by CharlesT


Good find but take a look at the airport/runway and the aircraft parked. Maybe too small of an airport if the plane found is a
777?

AIRPLANE (Map 654342):


AIRPORT (Map 656058):


AIRPLANES and HELICOPTERS PARKED (Map 656058):