Missing planes

[dont_do_it_doug.]

This is a new level of VT pedantry.

Actually its a new level of pedantry on VT as its isn't VT that is being pedantic.

The word you wanted to use there was "it". No grammar Nazism, I'm not really too bothered. I'm just being pedantic.

[CrackpotForeigner]

Strictly speaking that would be spelling Nazism, rather than grammar Nazism. I'm not being pedantic, this stuff is important.

Edited March 26, 2014 by CrackpotForeigner

[CrackpotForeigner]

Malaysia moves to reassure relatives who think they have been told less than the full truth.

 

Conspiracy theory dynamite there.

[Electric Avenue]

Talking of scary flight moments, does anyone recall the villa flight to Milan in the 90's , stormy journey plane hit by lightning and fell about 2000 feet in 3 seconds. Change of underwear stuff. Ugo Ehiogo literally went white.

Obviously the situation was recovered by the pilots so no drama

True story .

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Strictly speaking that would be spelling Nazism, rather than grammar Nazism. I'm not being pedantic, this stuff is important.

Surely not. "It's" is spelt correctly?

[Xela]

 

 

There are over 30 aviation disasters each year, I guess this one is getting more reaction because of the mystery surround it.

But not 30 disasters where a few hundred people die to be fair.

 

 

Most of them did have hundreds die in them. 2010 was a particularly bad year for aviation disasters. Usually if a plane goes down, everyone on board is a goner. 

 

People can relate to this one more as it's a '5 Star Airline' and a journey that me or you could be on. Plus it is a massive mystery

 

Unfortunately a rusty plane that crashes in a jungle in Congo, killing all on board, is not going to draw the same level of interest. Sadly, that's the way it is. 

[tonyh29]

Do like this comment

THIS IS TOUGH ON THE CHINESE........whose citizens are accustomed to open, uncensored, free information flow from their Government

[Kwan]

I did enjoy the irony there.

But sadly transparency isn't a strong part of Asian culture.

All about the face.

[blandy]

 

Malaysia moves to reassure relatives who think they have been told less than the full truth.

 

Conspiracy theory dynamite there.

 

Yes. I mean the statement on the Chinese website that "Wednesday's briefing was the first time the media were allowed to attend. - I'm shocked that there's been other briefings. I mean we wouldn't know there had been if it wasn't for that line.....oh and all the TV film and media reports from the other briefings, which the naughty media must have sneaked in to, en masse, unnoticed by the chinese.

[peterms]

China demands satellite data.

 

Bit tricky for Inmarsat, with its close links to the very highest levels of US military intelligence.  Can't see them rushing to be too sharing there.

[CrackpotForeigner]

Blandy: (sorry, broken VT can't quote)

 

The dynamite I was talking about was the bit about the press being prevented from hearing the pre-flight security briefing. No idea if it's of any significance or not, but it does seem like conspiracy theory dynamite.

[limpid]

Blandy: (sorry, broken VT can't quote)

(sorry, VT isn't broken, fix your browser)

[CrackpotForeigner]

Okay, VT doesn't work properly on my browser. Am I allowed to say that?

[peterms]

Yes. I mean the statement on the Chinese website that "Wednesday's briefing was the first time the media were allowed to attend. - I'm shocked that there's been other briefings. I mean we wouldn't know there had been if it wasn't for that line.....oh and all the TV film and media reports from the other briefings, which the naughty media must have sneaked in to, en masse, unnoticed by the chinese.

Singapore, not Chinese, I think.

 

But on the point about media presence, I really think they should have had closed briefings for the relatives, instead of having cameras thrust in their faces when they were in the most extreme state of anguish.

[Davkaus]

The media coverage has been an absolute disgrace.

 

There's a lot of people quite probably dead, a load of friends and families absolutely devastated by the loss of love ones, and the media are treating it like an episode of Inspector **** Morse, gleefully rubbing one out over grainy images of the ocean and spouting their uninformed fictitious theories of what happened to anyone who'll listen. Anything to get a few more eyeballs on their pages/screens, they ought to be ashamed of themselves, but they aren't.

[limpid]

Okay, VT doesn't work properly on my browser. Am I allowed to say that?

Clear your cookies and cache. Restart the browser.

[peterms]

Guess you didn't see my post that suggests the plane would have been there at 3am rather than 6:15... Had it delayed by 3 hrs by zig zagging and taking into account the low altitude would it then have had enough fuel to reach its likely crash zone ?

This article discusses that point, and clarifies the time difference:

 

 

...6:15 a.m. in the Maldives is 9:15 a.m. in Malaysia, so the sighting would have occurred seven hours and 45 minutes after the last radio contact, the now-famous "All right, goodnight" at 1:30 a.m. Malaysian time over the Gulf of Thailand.

 

A 777 series 200ER, with a nearly full load of 227 passengers and 12 crew, cargo, and fuel for the scheduled five and a half hour trip from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, plus reserves, would typically be able to stay in the air for a maximum of about eight hours. That makes the presence of the aircraft at 6 in the morning local time in the middle of the northern Indian Ocean technically possible.

 

In fact, the distance between the point of last radio contact and Kuda Huvadhoo is 2,000 miles, which a 777 at cruise speed would cover in far less time. Flying in a straight line from the Gulf of Thailand, MH370 would have appeared over the island no later than 3 a.m. local time, well before sunrise.

 

But the plane may not have flown in a straight line, for whatever reason: possibly a hijacking, and maybe the crew's attempt to foil it. Or it may have flown at very low level to avoid detection, where the air is thicker and jet planes fly slower because of added drag. It may also have been flying at reduced speed to conserve fuel, either because whoever controlled the plane wanted to maximize its range, or because jet engines are less efficient at low altitude.

 

One thing the Maldivian eyewitnesses did not mention, at least in the local newspaper's account, is seeing signs of the onboard fire that some experts say could have incapacitated or killed the crew while the plane kept flying on autopilot.

 

The idea of a fire as cause for MH370 crashing was first floated by a pilot on Google Plus last weekend, and went viral. It rests on the assumption that the pilots, far from being in on some nefarious plot, were heroes who steered the plane toward the most convenient airport for an emergency landing as soon as they realized that they had a fire or some other grave problem.

 

That airport would have been on the island of Langkawi off the west coast of Malaysia, exactly on the compass heading that the plane took when it turned westward over the South China Sea. Then the crew succumbed to the fire, or to lack of oxygen, and the plane kept flying on autopilot until fuel ran out.

 

But the fire plus emergency diversion theory, as compelling as it is and similar to other known incidents, leaves one question unanswered. If the pilots tried for a landing at Langkawi and missed because they became incapacitated, the autopilot would have kept them flying straight and level on the last compass heading. (Which would have taken MH370 more or less over Kuda Huvadhoo, by the way.)

 

Yet we know from Malaysian military radar tracking that after passing the west coast of Malaysia, MH370 zigzagged north and west, toward the Andaman Islands, following precise waypoints. Shortly before reaching the Andamans, it was lost to radar, and might have possibly made the Maldives, before disappearing toward one of the two arcs -- one in Central Asia, the other off the west coast of Australia -- where satellite pings say it must have ended its flight...

 

And in answer to your question, no, it wouldn't have had enough fuel to reach the place it is reported to have ditched, which seems to have escaped the person writing, though it seems it would have had enough to reach DG, on the assumptions given.

 

[MrDuck]

Good article I read today:

 

 

http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2014/03/27/the-fate-of-mh-370/

 

After having been the only commentator to have predicted, correctly, that Labor would hold on in South Australia, I now, with a bit less confidence, predict that the ocean flotsam south-west of Perth is not MH 370, and the missing plane is intact somewhere in Asia and its passengers, or most of its passengers, alive.

 

I say this for the following reasons.

 

1) Human intervention steered the plane through its radar-evasive altitudes for hours. It’s therefore likely no pilot-suicide plan was involved. The plane would have gone down sooner.

 

2) One of two routes the ‘pings’ suggested it was into several corrupt authoritarian Muslim countries to the north-north-west.

 

3) The Malaysian government had just imprisoned, again, a popular former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

 

4) The Malaysian Prime Minister, jumping the gun, declared that everybody was dead before any flotsam was looked at, and sent money to the relatives and looked very nervous. Keep in mind that he was/is a political rival of Amwar Ibrahim.

 

5) No-one has thus far explained how the south-south-west route could be part of any plausible plan, or caused by any plausible accident, and how it was that nobody sent a message of goodbye to a family member, while the plane flew on intact for seven hours.

 

Once you have eliminated the impossible, Watson, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. And the truth may well be that everyone is alive, and negotiations for Anwar’s return to politics are going slowly. The present Prime Minister, aware that he’s deceiving a lot of anguished relatives, has sent them some money, to show he’s a good chap, while refusing, thus far, to save the lives of the hostages.

 

To see how long these things can take we should go back to the US hostage crisis in Iran which took a year and brought down Jimmy Carter and elected Ronald Reagan. On the day of Ronnie’s inauguration, the hostages got out, and the Ayatollah Khoumeini’s people got a big swag of secret money from the former CIA director, George HW Bush.

 

This could be like that. Secrecy; delay; corruption; politics; money.

[leviramsey]

...my objection to the DG theory is that you're far too credible of the US Air Force, Peter.

I'm loath to say this, Levi, but I don't think that makes any sense.

The evidence beyond speculation for the DG theory rests on the USAF telling the truth when it could easily have lied without consequence.

[chrisp65]

 

Good article I read today:

 

 

http://www.ellistabletalk.com/2014/03/27/the-fate-of-mh-370/

 

After having been the only commentator to have predicted, correctly, that Labor would hold on in South Australia, I now, with a bit less confidence, predict that the ocean flotsam south-west of Perth is not MH 370, and the missing plane is intact somewhere in Asia and its passengers, or most of its passengers, alive.

 

I say this for the following reasons.

 

1) Human intervention steered the plane through its radar-evasive altitudes for hours. It’s therefore likely no pilot-suicide plan was involved. The plane would have gone down sooner.

 

2) One of two routes the ‘pings’ suggested it was into several corrupt authoritarian Muslim countries to the north-north-west.

 

3) The Malaysian government had just imprisoned, again, a popular former Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

 

4) The Malaysian Prime Minister, jumping the gun, declared that everybody was dead before any flotsam was looked at, and sent money to the relatives and looked very nervous. Keep in mind that he was/is a political rival of Amwar Ibrahim.

 

5) No-one has thus far explained how the south-south-west route could be part of any plausible plan, or caused by any plausible accident, and how it was that nobody sent a message of goodbye to a family member, while the plane flew on intact for seven hours.

 

Once you have eliminated the impossible, Watson, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. And the truth may well be that everyone is alive, and negotiations for Anwar’s return to politics are going slowly. The present Prime Minister, aware that he’s deceiving a lot of anguished relatives, has sent them some money, to show he’s a good chap, while refusing, thus far, to save the lives of the hostages.

 

To see how long these things can take we should go back to the US hostage crisis in Iran which took a year and brought down Jimmy Carter and elected Ronald Reagan. On the day of Ronnie’s inauguration, the hostages got out, and the Ayatollah Khoumeini’s people got a big swag of secret money from the former CIA director, George HW Bush.

 

This could be like that. Secrecy; delay; corruption; politics; money.

 

 

so to summarise:

 

the plane was abducted by alien muslim gangsters because

 

1 - it flew a wavey course and didn't just smack down at the earliest opportunity

 

2 - there are several corrupt muslim countries in the area (they are after all, scientifically proven to be the worst kind of corrupt your muslim corrupt)

 

3 - a politician in opposition to the govt had just been arrested

 

4 - the government man looked nervous 

 

5 - nobody knows nuffink

 

these 5 rock solid scientific conclusions prove beyond doubt that the plane is in a jungle hide out for no obvious porpoise

 

after all - that's a really really good way of getting hold of a big plane - much easier than, say, renting one.