How Do You Feel About the Situation of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370?

[Therumancer]

Choppity chop

Small but rather important point, the plane was last sighted the on radar the other side of Vietnam from China. The air defence zone recently declared by China is in the Sea of Japan the other side of the South China sea. China invaded Vietnam in 1979 and has an ongoing territorial dispute over island in the south China sea at the other end of Vietnam. Basic geography is against your theory.

I think you and Private Custard haven't been paying much attention:

http://news.yahoo.com/philippines-protests-chinese-water-cannon-092956113.html;_ylt=A0LEVx0fkh9TRD0AewBXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzMGU0ajdkBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDIyMF8x

The Philippines are even further away and China's navy has been rather belligerently targeting civilian craft there as well. China is trying to assert pretty much the entire South China Sea region, or at least key areas of it, as it's sphere of control. It simply makes the news less often, given that the US has been far more concerned over the situation with Japan, due to Japan being the base of a lot of our naval forces in the region and how the territory under dispute represents one of the big channels we'd use if there was ever a war with China.

A missile does not need to come from mainland China, especially seeing as we foolishly did not decide to pre-emptively take action against China in building up it's military. That's old school thinking. China has created things like their "Yuan Class Submarine" which have proven capable of even getting past US detection:

http://voices.yahoo.com/chinese-submarine-beats-navys-best-sonar-operators-123168.html

Trust me when I say a lot of my concerns over China have not come about for no reason, most people aren't even aware of things like this.

The point here is if China fired on the air liner, the missile very well could have come from a submarine, a destroyer (yes China has them now), or other sources, and you are very much looking at an area where China has also been belligerently trying to force under it's control.

China's use of water cannons to harass the Philippines is largely because if they did more it would actually start a war when they aren't quite ready for it. They are mostly testing US resolve. The Philippines is a US territory, meaning it's pretty much ours even if we aren't directly ruling it or granting it statehood. This civilian airliner however didn't have many Americans on board, and represents more of a general attack, and what's more my point was that it would be a hot headed action, rather than one that was pre-meditated by the government. Someone like a submarine commander would indeed have the autonomy to do something like this, and might even be able to vaguely justify it within standing orders (and also claim communication silence to avoid verifying things). If your dealing with a militant Chinese racist to begin with.... well, let's just say it wouldn't be the first time naval forces have done things like this.

People need to get their head around the fact that we've been so lax in our policies that China is now capable of projecting it's power well beyond it's borders. It's sort of like the US in that respect, we could in theory be responsible for something anywhere on the planet, China isn't on quite that level yet, but it has started projecting it's power throughout the entire region.

 

[Vivi22]

Think it is sort of bullshit no one has noticed a giant ass fucking plane. They apparently had enough gas to go 3000 miles though (holy shit) so it is quite a big net to cast I guess.

Size is relative, and compared to even a fraction of the Earth's surface, those "giant ass fucking planes" are incredibly small. And if it went down over water then debris floating at the surface may be minimal, and nearly impossible to spot. Even if it didn't go down over water, it could still be the old case of a needle in a haystack.

Especially when you consider that if, as you say, it had enough fuel to travel 3,000 miles, you're looking at a potential search area in the ballpark of 88,000,000 square miles if you had absolutely no information to narrow it down. And that plane is only 209 feet long with a wingspan just under 200 feet.

Come to think of it, a needle in a haystack would be easier to find.

 

[Frezzato]

Just putting this here as an update by Malaysian authorities as to the latest theory regarding a possible course change:

Spoiler: Here's The Route The Malaysian Military Thinks The Missing Boeing 777 Took

 

[Treeinthewoods]

Ten years from now the plane will land at the airport, all passengers will be healthy and fine but none will have aged a single day from the date of the disappearance and will believe they just flew to their destination uninterrupted.

Or it's under water somewhere, but you'd think some of he stuff from the plane would have floated.

 

[Doclector]

Honestly? I'm completely puzzled more than anything else. It's terrible, no doubt, but it's so bizarre. All our modern communication technology, all the failsafes, but it still just suddenly disappeared. As far as we know, no "Mayday, mayday", no strange messages, nothing.

I'd hope that they find someone alive, if not all of them, but with the plane disappearing that fast and your standard chances in a plane crash not being great anyways, it's not looking good at all.

 

[Private Custard]

The Philippines are even further away

Geography is most definitely not your strong point eh!

The plane went missing 1.5x further away from China than the Philippines......with three-and-a-bit countries between them, rather than the open ocean between them and the (closer than the Filipino mainland) disputed Scarborough Shoal.

Look, you don't like China, we get it. But throwing around accusations is just silly.

 

[InsanityRequiem]

Either the plane experienced catastrophic mechanical failure that messed up the controls/radar or somehow disintegrated mid-flight. Terrorism? Nope. No one is claiming and recent reports I've seen say that the passport fakers were attempting to seek asylum. China or North Korea? There are too many, way too many military bases for something like that to happen. Heck, there's a near constant stream of satellite covered in the pacific asia area. Any military type of situation would have been thrown out there the moment a military missile/plane would be used.

The one main thing I don't like about the search is that it's too narrow. By limiting their search to one small spot in the ocean, they ignore the fact tat if the plane went water bound, the ocean currents may have moved debris. If the plane went land bound, the wildlife have the possibility of damaging things.

 

[Therumancer]

The Philippines are even further away

Geography is most definitely not your strong point eh!

The plane went missing 1.5x further away from China than the Philippines......with three-and-a-bit countries between them, rather than the open ocean between them and the (closer than the Filipino mainland) disputed Scarborough Shoal.

Look, you don't like China, we get it. But throwing around accusations is just silly.

Listen carefully, the plane is moving across the South China sea, it's on it's way past the coas of Vietnam from Malaysia. That entire area is something China is trying to take control of, it's claims about "these shoals", "that island", etc... are just excuses. It could have subs, destroyers, and anything else all between 'Nam, Malaysia, and The Philippines because China consider all of this to be rightfully their territory to begin with.

Fine, YOU do not think that China might have shot down the plane. For me it's just a theory, but seems plausible only because of all of the more likely ones that have already been omitted. You are generally correct that China would be well outside of their acknowleged territory in doing this, but that's been the issue with China in recent years. Likewise part of the entire theory is that it was more or less an accident on their part, hence a cover up. That's less of an "I don't like China" argument than you might think. Truthfully I'd be pointing more of a finger at our own government and others assisting with the response efforts who would be complicit with it, albeit for what they see as being the greater good.

Given that the nature of the problem so far is that malfunction, terrorism, and other more "reasonable" problems have already been largely shown to be unlikely, your thus left with either the question of who destroyed the plane and why it would be covered up, or a theory like alien abduction. Now, I'm guessing from your perspective you'd prefer it remain a mystery, or you want to entertain more outlandish theories, but I'd prefer to keep it relatively down to earth, and you wind up with something like this as the remaining possible explanation, and really China is the only one in the region who likely could have done it, barring perhaps the US or Russia, but neither the US or Russia have shown any behavior recently that points to either a motive, or an attitude that could lead to some kind of mistake.

China now has the technology where they could be considered a possible suspect in anything like this, even things that happen much further away. That's a big part of the problem of having let them develop this level of military technology while maintaining their current culture and attitudes. Any time *anything* happens of this sort China is going to be a likely suspect. People just aren't used to thinking of them on this level.

At any rate, we'll see what happens, honestly though, I imagine we won't be getting any solid answers. Even if they found wreckage tomorrow it would be questionable (a theorized plant or whatever) due to having "missed it" for so long.

Who knows, maybe it was aliens or magic... but as I said, I'd prefer to keep it down to earth and even my more outlandish theories are likely to continue to involve terrestrial causes, and given that planes do not just disappear at this point I find it fairly likely that the real issue is that the first responders to the incident have been covering it up. That sounds crazy unless you ask your self "with all of this technology how does a plane go missing" and then realize that the only possible answer is "it didn't", at which point the question becomes "why do this?".

 

[Private Custard]

snip

Well, I'm not thinking about any outlandish theories. I'm thinking either...

a) A lone bomber. A random lunatic, not a part of any major organisation.

b) Massive structural failure. Seriously, the last thing anyone would be doing in that situation would be sending panic-texts, or calling home. Last time I was at 38,000ft over that area of the world, we were travelling at over 500mph, there was very little oxygen, and the outside temperature was -69.7 degrees. Someone or something 'opens a door', things generally go to shit very quickly!

 

[shootthebandit]

I find it strange that it's even possible to completely lose a giant passenger plane with no trace in this day and age. I mean, there are websites where you can track where airplanes are in real time within a few hundred meters of their position, and you're telling me this airplane is just gone with no clue as to where it is? I have a lot of trouble believing that. The level of incompetence for this to have happened must be astounding.

For god's sake, the plane had a GPS device that it was being tracked by, and probably 95% of the passengers on board have cellphones, which double as GPS trackers, you'd think they'd have some idea of where the plane is, even if it crashed.

The aircraft GPS is probably just a receiver. Aircraft that I work on the GPS antennas are only a receiver. I dont know how these tracker apps work though. Im guessing they are info from air traffic rather than the jet itself.

The transponder is most likely turned off. Thats the box that tells airtraffic and other aircraft your position and tail number.

Assuming a total electrically failure (which would mean a total engine failure + APU (auxiliary power unit) which is basically a mini engine that powers a hydraulic pump and a generator) you would still have back up DC batteries which would still give you use of the radio etc. Meaning its deliberate that hes gone off the grid. There are so many redundancies on an aircraft that its nigh on impossible for the pilot to lose all his systems

My educated guess is that its been hijacked. The hijacker is pretty clued up and has turned off all the transmitters and its been intercepted and shot down. Probably why there is no information about the incident. Pretty much as soon as an aircraft goes off the grid you can guarantee a pair of fighters will be there VERY quickly if they have reason to believe its been hijacked they are within their rights to shoot it down

 

[FPLOON]

The first thing I said when I heard about the incident was "They're on the island..."
Yes I realized that I'm a huge asshole.
Seriously though the information about this thing just gets more and more bizarre.

I basically thought the same thing... and even added that I'm counting down to the movie adaptation of said events getting an Academy award...

OT: Considering this is all happening NOWHERE near the Bermuda Triangle, if I'm reading this all correctly, this whole story is just confusing me the more info I hear about it... Even those that are trying to imply logic behind certain details of said story isn't making me feel any better...

 

[Therumancer]

snip

Well, I'm not thinking about any outlandish theories. I'm thinking either...

a) A lone bomber. A random lunatic, not a part of any major organisation.

b) Massive structural failure. Seriously, the last thing anyone would be doing in that situation would be sending panic-texts, or calling home. Last time I was at 38,000ft over that area of the world, we were travelling at over 500mph, there was very little oxygen, and the outside temperature was -69.7 degrees. Someone or something 'opens a door', things generally go to shit very quickly!

In either case however there would still be wreckage, not to mention some record of what happened as these aircraft are in communication with control centers constantly. That's a big part of the issue, when a plane is destroyed, even after a massive structural failure, there are still traces of it. You don't need passengers to be involved in panic texts, or even the pilot to radio anything, it's being tracked constantly to within a few hundred meters of it's location.

For this to have happened the plane would have to be destroyed very quickly and by an amazing destructive force, including components like it's recorders and black box, which are designed specifically to survive this kind of thing and send out signals for recovery on their own. The kind of bomb a lone bomber could have carried on board is unlikely to have done this kind of damage. On the other hand military grade ordinance (a missile intended to destroy large sized aircraft to this extent) could have done this.

Just as importantly though is the lack of wreckage as in any situation, including a missile hit, there would be lots of wreckage over a wide area, and certain components would still have likely survived to give information. This is the most puzzling aspect of the entire thing. That wreckage isn't there, which fundamentally means the plane must have been landed, or taken intact (X-files music) or the wreckage is there, but is being covered up for the moment. If the wreckage is being covered up, the question is always "why" and given the speed of the response this would require chances are it means governments realized there was an "oops" and decided to cover it for mutally beneficial
reasons.

Now of course there are other potential theories here of course that follow along similar lines, such as the potential testing or usage of an "X weapon", again likely by China given where this happened. An "X-weapon" simply means "unknown weapon" representing something experimental, typically they are what actually win wars or motivate campaigns of conquest. As one of the areas China still has to worry about is losing air superiority, it makes a degree of sense they would be testing unusual anti-air systems, and whatever disappeared the plane has a perfectly terrestrial explanation (albeit something we by definition have not thought of yet). Of course it's still far more likely that the military jumped the gun and there is a cover up involved.

 

[axillarypuma]

I read somewhere that the airline said "they just changed the destination" this is not an exact quote tho. Being fully honest, I find this case creepy as fuck, I mean there is a possibility that it was hijacked but really, a plane disappearing and leaving no trace is just crazy.

 

[Therumancer]

[

at which point the question becomes "why do this?".

For somebody claiming to avoid outlandish theories, you jumped pretty quickly onto it being a conspiracy theory.

For China to have destroyed the airliner, the following would have needed to have happened:

1) China to have a military vessel with missile-carrying capabilities in the area
2) To have at least one missile aboard that vessel
3) To have at least one missile aboard that vessel that is capable of accurately hitting an airliner 20,000 feet in the air.
4) The technology to detected said airliner
5) To have detected the airliner with aforementioned technology
6a) To not take the time to distinguish what type of aircraft it was or alternatively
6b) To not care which type of aircraft it was
7) To have the commander of whatever vessel to think its a good idea to fire upon said aircraft
8) To have said commander bypass the chain of command[footnote]because there's no way any commander in a military as competent as China's would be allowed to take this action without consulting higher up the chain first.[/footnote]
9) To have all of the crew aboard the ship to allow the commander to shoot down an unidentified, most likely civilian, aircraft,an act in direct defiance of the chain of command, which an action which obviously carries the potential of starting World War III

Yeah, I get it, China, expansionism, waterhoses. I'll lend more credence to your hypothesis when China starts torpedoing fishing vessels instead of just spraying its crew with water. However, China has not proven to use lethal tactics so far, and it takes more than one hothead to send a missile twenty thousand feet into the air to destroy an aircraft.

Actually it doesn't, any effective military has great autonomy in cases like this due to needing to be able to respond immediately to threats on the spot. Unlike Hollywood a submarine commander is not going to get in touch with command every time a decision needs to be made, since that would both castrate the military, and run a serious risk of revealing where your subs are, when the whole point of subs out on long deployment is in order to have these missiles out there in concealment where nobody except maybe a tiny handful of military brass know where they are generally stationed.

Likewise in the military people are conditioned to obey orders unquestioningly, which is frequently criticized, but exists because leadership has to occasionally make touchy choices right on the spot. Not to mention crews on submarines usually know very little other than how to do their job. The captain does not announce to every bubble head "okay we're firing a missile now" or anything like that. Typically a bubblehead will not know where they are being deployed ahead of time, and will in many cases not have the slightest idea where they were when they return (though they might be able to find out, especially after the fact), in part because the military might use the same locations, and every sailor who is able to say "hey our sub was out here" is a leak letting others who might want to know that there are almost certainly US subs in that area as one potentially goes out to replace the one coming in.

Sending subs out there unarmed is kind of a joke, so, no... that's not bloody likely that anything out there on patrol, picket duty, or to assert Chinese dominance would not be carrying missiles. After all if the whole "sh@t just got real" call goes out, its not likely all their subs out there are going to be able to come home to pick up their missiles/nukes/whatever else and then head back out.

As far as some hot headed commander firing, a lot comes down to his standing orders and what he was told to do as well. He might very well know it was a "civilian aircraft" but was told to drop anything he thought was suspicious, and this seemed suspicious. Especially if it was a young commander itching to test out his weapons and looking for any target he could potentially justify later, especially if he buys into China's racist, expansionist, hype. It would not be the first time things like this have happened, albeit it would be one of the bigger incidents in recent history, and at an incredibly inconvenient time.

It is after all just a theory, but it seems that this is the most likely reason why the international community would agree to cover something like this up.

It's also possible a missile was fired by a captain under these circumstances due to an accident on another level. One of the big theories behind things like "numbers stations" all over the world is that if they follow a specific count/sequence (verified in books at a high level) everything is okay, but if that count stops, uses a different sequence, or suffers a delay, it's a sign to those listening to take action. This is done so that hidden troops out in the field (imbedded special forces, deep cover agent, stealth submarines) know what to do without having to receive orders. Whether true or not, similar systems apparently exist. Whatever the guy in command of say a sub or destroyer was listening to might have effectively destroyed what was in his grid when there was an error from his handlers, machine malfunction, whatever, as well. That's another reason other than being a hothead someone in this position could have fired, and given China's current posturing and movement towards conflict, you'd expect them to be on edge for this kind of thing as well.

 

[Albino Boo]

Chop

You sir have not looked at a map. You are blaming China is like blaming Cuba for the disappearance of an airline of the Atlantic coast of Florida. The Aircraft was lost on the wrong side of Vietnam. I have been aware of the existence of the Spratlys since the mid 1980s and I am also aware the existence Paracels which China also has a dispute of there ownership. In fact the Paracels is one of the reasons why China invaded Vietnam in 1979. However the positioning of both islands in the south china sea is no where near to where the aircraft was lost

Flight path

islands

Further more the search area is now in the Andaman not just the other side of Vietnam but the other side of Malaysia from China. The only submarine that carries an anti aircraft missile is the Kilo class and even then its a periscope mounted version of a shoulder launched SAM incapable of hitting an aircraft above 10,000 ft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-N-10_Gimlet

 

[Mik Sunrider]

I have a heard an interesting idea on the radio tonight to explore if anyone has the knowledge to fill in the gaps, it is a long shot but you know longs shots do come true from time to time. What if the plane was hit by meteorite? Think about it, the crew would have no chance to send out a SOS. The rock wouldn't had to been very big that high up and the speed and heat from the rock would vaporize the plane, that is why the black boxes are not working; they are vapor. No debris field to find because the plane was made in to confetti.

Like I said the odds are so long but could anything else explain it?

 

[Therumancer]

I have a heard an interesting idea on the radio tonight to explore if anyone has the knowledge to fill in the gaps, it is a long shot but you know longs shots do come true from time to time. What if the plane was hit by meteorite? Think about it, the crew would have no chance to send out a SOS. The rock wouldn't had to been very big that high up and the speed and heat from the rock would vaporize the plane, that is why the black boxes are not working; they are vapor. No debris field to find because the plane was made in to confetti.

Like I said the odds are so long but could anything else explain it?

Not likely, because unless the meteor was truly massive (and it would have been noticed) there would still be wreckage. My own, less than popular, theory simply comes from the fact that the only way a plane can vanish like this is human involvement, unless your going to bring paranormal events into it. Basically any meteor that would have gone unnoticed would have been small enough to leave substantial amounts of wreckage.

What's more part of the issue is that planes are constantly tracked, as some people have pointed out they know where commercial airliners are to within a few hundred feet, as they have satellites watching them constantly. There are even apparently websites you can use to check the exact location of specific planes.

A meteor would have been rare yes, but I can't see that having not been noticed at this point. Basically the only way for that to happen is again human involvement, if someone was to intentionally lock down or alter the tracking data and gathering information and such. At which point you need to ask why anyone would do that. Covering up a plane's destruction to stop a war is one thing, doing it to cover up some freak occurrence of nature... not likely.

That's pretty much the problem with all the theories and such at this point, any way you slice it, something that big doesn't just vanish, no matter what you do to it, wreckage is going to survive. If one argues a heat source hot enough to instantly turn it to vapor... that would have been picked up or otherwise noticed.

At any rate, I imagine this one will be fodder for theorists for years. Even if they find the plane tomorrow and come up with a plausible explanation I don't think it will be just accepted at this point.

 

[Therumancer]

Chop

You sir have not looked at a map. You are blaming China is like blaming Cuba for the disappearance of an airline of the Atlantic coast of Florida. The Aircraft was lost on the wrong side of Vietnam. I have been aware of the existence of the Spratlys since the mid 1980s and I am also aware the existence Paracels which China also has a dispute of there ownership. In fact the Paracels is one of the reasons why China invaded Vietnam in 1979. However the positioning of both islands in the south china sea is no where near to where the aircraft was lost

Further more the search area is now in the Andaman not just the other side of Vietnam but the other side of Malaysia from China. The only submarine that carries an anti aircraft missile is the Kilo class and even then its a periscope mounted version of a shoulder launched SAM incapable of hitting an aircraft above 10,000 ft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-N-10_Gimlet

Let's be honest China's been prepping for expansion and invasion for a while, I very much doubt their claims to not have AA missiles bigger than a shoulder mounted missile on their subs. Especially seeing as I've read quite a bit about the so called "Yuan" class and that was a big part of it, a multi-mission stealth submarine at least on par with our under produced Seawolf class, and which proved capable of getting past the detection of one of our carrier groups. It's capable of firing torpedos, AA missiles, anti-missile missiles, and apparently deploying nuclear warheads. That's half my point, very few people bother to pay attention to what China's been building.

Again, you miss the entire point, nobody (except for you) has been talking about proximity to China, when China is projecting it's sphere of influence the way it has been, the location doesn't matter even if there are specific hot points. Anywhere in the South China Sea could see a Chinese naval vessel or sub, and part of their entire goal is to control the whole bloody thing, an island here, a shoal there, those are just specific places where there has been direct conflict. What's more China in 1979 was a mere shadow of what it is today.

Think what you want, and if being that far away from China's borders re-assures you, so be it. I'm not entirely sold on my own theory, but really given the region it does answer all the questions, unlike most other theories, and people scratching their heads. Well, unless you want to get really crazy like saying it was Aliens, the EXO barrier, The White Effect, some kind of secret government experiment, or whatever else. Part of what makes this annoying is that we're already well past Occam's Razor since all of the likely things have already been excluded.

 

[Albino Boo]

Chop

OK you clearly know nothing about submarines. The Kilo and Yuan class are diesel electric powered boats. They have to recharge their batteries which involves a process known as snorting. The submarine sits at periscope depth and raises a mast to act as an exhaust for the diesel engines. This is when a diesel boat is most vulnerable, because it is make the most noise, which means it is when it is most likely to come under attack from anti submarine aircraft and helicopters. Air launched torpedoes can only be dropped from low altitude and at close range. The only reason why diesel electric and diesel electric submarines carry short range sams is because the only time that they can be used is when an air threat is in close range and at low altitude. A longer range sam system would require a submarine to sit on the surface and to operate an airsearch radar which will give the position of the submarine away, not something that is a good idea in vessel that relies on stealth. The seawolf class is an nuclear powered class submarine and can basically stay underwater until it runs out of food. SSN have no need of sams because they do not need to snort and never make that much noise.

The distance means that that no Chinese forces would have need to be there and have no territorial claim to enforce nor would they have any reason to think they were under attack by an airline at 20,000 ft. As to the most likely explanation , I refer you to this post

Latest news is that the FAA issued a warning about corrosion and cracking on the 777 that could lead to loss of structural integrity.

and this post

Yeah, I didn't want to say it outright, but the only scenario I can think of in which all communications (including private cellphone communications) would be cut off would be, as you put it, sudden catastrophic loss of integrity. Which as far as I can figure could only be caused by terrorism, anti-aircraft missiles, or Boeing fucking up again. Any of which probably means everyone is dead.

In this case it's not Boeing fucking up again. All commercial aircraft undergo regular inspection at set time and parts are replaced according to a strict schedule set out by the manufacturer. During one the inspections cracking and corrosion was found by the Satcom antenna. After this a further 42 aircraft were inspected of similar age of which 16 had the same problem. The FAA, as the agency responsible for Boeing aircraft, added inspections to the routine maintenance cycle.

The whole dreamliner saga was a complete screw up not just by Boeing but by the FAA. The FAA should have never certified the new lithium ion batteries in the first place. The design standard to which civil aircraft are built is that you have to carry mitigation for events with odds up to 12 million to 1. Clearly the batteries were not tested enough for that standard to be met and therefore should not have been given clearance. I have worked air safety critical code and there has always been a suspicion the FAA and the european equivalent have been moved by commercial pressures emanating from airbus and boeing.