Malaysia Flight MH370, 2 1/2 years later, still not found, theories abound. What happened?

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: weavty1

Pan Am lost four aircraft in something like 9 months. It's rare, but it happens.

That's a good point. That and throughout the relatively short time that commercial jet aviation has been around, most smaller airlines tend to have not so stellar rapport in regards to the maintenance of their fleet.

a reply to: weavty1

Not long after 370 an aircraft had to divert with serious generator problems. Instead of the maintenance director releasing information about it, the CEO came forward. There was talk that the maintenance director hadn't been seen around their hangars for awhile around then. That was around the time their records section burned.

a reply to: Zaphod58
My my, that's convenient.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Once again, my point about "saving face"...the Malay government will never acknowledge what really happened!!!

Never!!

I was a platinum member (or whatever they called it, probably a "durian" member) on that airline for years.

I remember when we "tried" to open the new airport in Kuala Lumpur (in Sepang). The fires and smoke were so bad coming out of "Indonesia" (which was another lie), the visibility was down WAY below a CAT III approach, but they were going to do it anyway...with a 747-400!

The ILS was down (hard) no power...and the generators had repeatedly failed. Not even the approach lights were working. The visibility was well below 600 RVR (maybe 300, if that). We had volunteered to fly the plane, or "a" plane (a 737) on a DME (triangulation) approach (dangerous, but doable). They said "NO!" They'd do it themselves! And they wanted to send the 400 in there!!

I actually have pictures of this flight (well, as best a person could take pictures of a flight in a complete zero visibility conditions). Lending lights headed right for the gallery, and a hard right bank with a wingtip coming up out of the heavy smoke. I'll never forget it

They touched down over 2,000 feet down the runway, and slid off into the endzone! There was a HUGE celebration! In the smoke, no one could see. It took several tugs to get the 400 out of the gravel, but the Agong (King) himself welcomed the pilot as he walked down the stairs, and the Prime Minister, "Dr. M", was right behind him.

They were 500 feet left of the centerline and way long on the approach (an "abort" under any other circumstance, but not in Malaysia). This was "national pride".

So yeah, I believe...I believe the Malays are totally honest about MH370! I've witnessed their "honesty" first hand...in an aviation sence! (just being sarcastic here of course!!).

Honestly, do you think these guys are going to acknowledge what "really" happened with MH370?

I think NOT!!!

I have no theory on what happened, however a couple of points:

If the plane hit the water at a high speed, it would be exactly the same as it hitting a solid steel cement wall, it would be smashed into thousands upon thousand of small and slightly large pieces making it quite hard to track down the crash site as there wouldn't be one or several large pieces of the aircraft to detect on sonar,and with the oceans currents spreading the pieces of aircraft into many different locations during the long drawn out search for it because they did not know exactly where to look,it would make it even more extremely difficult to find it.

There were several different accounts on some higher up people speaking about intelligence agencies knowing the location of where it went down via their satellites, but because of national security and denial policies they cannot give details or confirm or deny because it would reveal the satellite system capabilities, specs etc etc.

Hopefully one day we will know what happened, the families and friends deserve that final closure; compensation is great and all that, knowing is better then money.

a reply to: MuonToGluon

When, not "if", the aircraft impacted the water it was indeed like slamming into a concrete wall. Most people think the water is somehow "soft", but anyone who's done a belly-flop off a high board will tell you different.

Imagine the same at 400mph (maybe 250-300mph on even a controlled descent). Sully and US Air 1549 wasn't at "cruise" when he ditched, he was climbing out. His poise and control is legendary...absolutely legendary, he did everything right. But it was a different situation from MH 370.

First, AWE 1549 ditched in daylight, so Capt. Sully had the ability to stall the aircraft right above the water, which he did (saving all lives on board). He could see the water. No one onboard MH 370 cared about seeing the water, and they likely crashed from altitude (much higher), it was night time. Capt. Sully was a hero...Zaharie (or his copilot) is a "terrorist"!!

No, MH 370 was lost via an intentional act...there's no other way to characterize it.

Sorry.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

You have totally popped my bubble FCD 😪😪

I wanted to believe that MH370 had been sucked out of the air by aliens and all on board were now on the mothership which is lurking behind the moon waiting for the right time to invade....

Sadly though I must conclude yours is the most coherent and rational explanation 👍

MR

I don't buy the nose dive into the ocean. Let's look at some known facts.

All fuel tanks have unusable fuel in them, even when empty. Usually several gallons

When filght 447 crashed it had numerous floating debris for many days.

Jet fuel has high flash point and evaporates slowly.

When sully landed on the hudson river there was little or no debris in fact the only debris was engines that came off and sank. The plane slowly sank.

If 370 ran out of fuel and nosed into ocean, where was the debris field like 447? No where to be found. 447 had vertical tail floating for days.

Even on empty tanks several gallons remained. If it were to have been like 447 the sheen would have been quite large and lasted for several days. Even with wind and waves increasing evaporation, it would take days for the sheen to disappear, it would still be visible by the time they started searching the suspected crash site.

If it were a water landing, there would be no debris field, and no fuel sheen. We know this because of what we saw on the hudson. We also know that the plane would sink quickly even intact. We also know that it would have sank long before they even started searching where they think it went down.

Given the evidence at hand, including radar that can only prove controlled flight, the only conclusion is that there was a water landing and the plane sank intact to the bottom of the ocean

The fact that the flapperon was not in the deployed state says that either no one was conscious when the plane made it's decent into the ocean, or the controls themselves were previously so damaged that it could not be deployed.'

I also go with a catastrophic condition in the aircraft at the first turn. They could have lost total control of the control surfaces and perhaps the only way to steer was to use differential thrust in the engines. Then, I think something overtook all, including the crew (fumes from a fire?) , and the plane just kept heading south until it ran out of fuel.

I sure hope that a piece of wreckage will be recovered that will have substantial evidence to show what really happened.

a reply to: bigx001

The wreckage found shows damage consistent with a high speed impact. In addition to the flaperon charlyv mentioned, several pieces showed impact damage. The type of damage that wouldn't happen with a water landing.

originally posted by: schuyler
Any theory has to take into consideration several undeniable facts. 1.) The pilot deviated from the normal course and diverted the airplane south over the Indian Ocean. 2.) The same flight was found on his personal flight simulator. 3.) Verifiable pieces of the plane have washed ashore. 4.) Satellites tracked the airplane as it flew.

There is no evidence that it was shot down by anyone. There is no evidence that it was hijacked, flew somewhere else, and was used in some sort of operation. There is no evidence for any sort of abduction. These are all flights of fancy that have no evidence whatsoever. Basically there is a very mundane explanation that fits all the facts as we know them. The pilot intentionally deviated from the course and crashed the plane. There may be a "mystery" over why he did it, but there is no mystery over what happened, no conspiracy. If you are going to speculate something much more exotic, then the onus is upon you to provide supporting evidence. Just claiming, "What if "X" happened?" does not constitute a viable theory. It doesn't explain anything.

To point: 1.) We can agree that the plane deviated, but how can you know, as an ironclad fact, that it was the pilot who did it? Can you really?
2.) A similar flight path was reportedly found on the pilots home flight-simulator: possibly true; possibly a fabrication, or possibly that he made an error programming the flight path, on the sim, and just deleted it after.
3.) Reportedly verifiable pieces were found.
4.) We were told that the satellite pings showed that course.
-
Here are some questions that have never seen addressed anywhere yet:
Is it possible that there was an error on the flight program, where after it hit the last normal checkpoint, the X or Y coordinate was programmed as say a -25.xxx, instead of a +25.xxx? (would cause a 180 degree turn).
Could the flight program have been hacked, and pre-programmed by a tech with flight-deck access, before the flight, or even days before? Or hacked live at distance, or by a passenger with a laptop or smartphone?
During stopovers and maintenance, do techs not connect their portable computers to the planes computer, to download/upload data?
Could an on-board activist have flash-bombed the flight crew, and taken-over the controls of the plane?
Could the authorities be lying about many of the details?
Could the reported found parts, just be spare factory parts? Are those flapperons ever changed after 15 years of service time for a jet?
It was reported that the calculations of the end of the flight path, were calculated using pings, that were not used for location purposes. This was the first time that anyone ever devised a complicated algorithm, to translate those pigs into geolocations. How can this be confirmed or refuted? What if they are way off?

Not to be ignored, is the fact that the Rockerfellers, as a result of this tragedy, inherited some potentially blockbuster patents. And they do love to accumulate patents.

A true grand mystery of our times!

a reply to: Nothin

Some very interesting thoughts.

Here is some more recent news.

Crews have picked up hundreds of sonar contacts of interest throughout the two-year hunt. The contacts are grouped into three classification levels based on their likelihood of being linked to the plane. Contacts dubbed “classification 1” are considered the most likely to have come from the aircraft. None of the recent sonar contacts that the drone will investigate are classification 1. There have only been two contacts that fit into that category thus far; one turned out to be an old shipwreck, and the other was a rock field. Search crews have so far come up empty in their attempt to find the main underwater wreckage of the plane, which vanished on March 8, 2014, during a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. The ships have less than 10,000 square kilometers left to scour of the 120,000-square kilometer search zone. Officials previously said the search would be finished by December. On Wednesday, the transport bureau said it is now likely to take until January or February to complete, due to the long stretch of poor winter weather that has hampered search efforts.

None of the sonar contacts exhibit the characteristics of a typical aircraft debris field, said the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is heading up the hunt for the Boeing 777 in a desolate stretch of the Indian Ocean.

SOURCE

As previously wondered, who is really taking the lead on this search, it appears Australia. What a mystery, maybe by January we'll know something new

The 757, 767, and 777 all use the same windscreen and heater. Between 2002 and 2014, there were 39 reported incidents involving the heater, eight on 777s built around the aircraft used for MH370.

Looking at records, over the course of 100 flights, the aircraft lost as much as 750 psi in the cockpit oxygen system, which is higher than it should be. It's possible that during checks a pilot left a mask on longer than they should have, but we know the 777 had a flaw that could cause a leak in the cockpit oxygen system.

There's a theory I've tossed around since the disappearance. The US and UK maintain a base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. It's one of only a couple bases in the world that can service the B-2 bomber. The last known heading of MH370 was taking it in that general direction.

If some incident, like a fire or depressurization, left MH370 flying towards Diego Garcia, with the crew unable to respond to any attempts at communication, would the US/British have shot down the plane? Probably. They'd be concerned that terrorists were attempting a 9/11-style attack on a valuable military asset. And even if there was no chance that the flight could be saved, the "optics" of shooting down a passenger jet are bad enough that they would deny knowing anything about the missing plane. They would be in a position to convince ally Australia to belatedly provide phony tracking data showing the plane went much further south. They could gather up some debris at the real crash site and drop it at a location that supports the "south to oblivion" story.

a reply to: AndyFromMichigan

Unless they had an Aegis in the area, they had no way to shoot anything down. And without a valid threat, no reason to. Diego is not restricted airspace, and aircraft fly over and around it all the time.

originally posted by: AndyFromMichigan
There's a theory I've tossed around since the disappearance. The US and UK maintain a base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. It's one of only a couple bases in the world that can service the B-2 bomber. The last known heading of MH370 was taking it in that general direction.

If some incident, like a fire or depressurization, left MH370 flying towards Diego Garcia, with the crew unable to respond to any attempts at communication, would the US/British have shot down the plane? Probably. They'd be concerned that terrorists were attempting a 9/11-style attack on a valuable military asset. And even if there was no chance that the flight could be saved, the "optics" of shooting down a passenger jet are bad enough that they would deny knowing anything about the missing plane. They would be in a position to convince ally Australia to belatedly provide phony tracking data showing the plane went much further south. They could gather up some debris at the real crash site and drop it at a location that supports the "south to oblivion" story.

That is an interesting theory. However, if that was the case. I believe that the base would have sent up escort jets up to view the unresponding passenger jet. They most likely might have seen the decompression, or other problems such as a fire, etc. before just blowing it from the sky.

Think of the debris that would have left floating in the ocean? Strange case for sure. I think there is a nefarious reason to the disappearance, just not sure which one. However, if I had to lean one way, I'd say the pilot is the prime suspect. Either due to severe emotional distress over his failing personal life and/or a political terrorist reason.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: loveguy

The pilots bodies were still intact after it was shot down. They were found strapped into their seats, and were alive at the time it was shot down. As for the missile detonating near the cockpit, at the time it was fired, the aircraft was approaching the launcher. Where should it have detonated?

MH370 disappeared before MH17 was shot down.

thanks for the nice pic to prove any point you were trying to make.

a reply to: loveguy

The point was that your claim of remote control was wrong. It was a normal flight, shot down over a war zone.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Zaph,
What are the chances that an aircraft like this could lose FBW and mechanical backup simultaniously? Has it ever happened to an aircraft before that flew this long (or close), after a suspected catastrophic failure?