A.R.S.E.

Anyone else following this news story?

It's very peculiar.

Usually when a plane goes down it doesn't really take too long to find the debris, even in the sea, but in this case there was no mayday call and there seems to be reasonable evidence that the tracking transponders were either deliberately turned off or had a major failure.

Various theories are floating around from the pilots stealing it for either financial or terrorist gains to cockpit fires killing the pilots meaning it just flew on and eventually ran out of fuel. All without anyone anywhere seeing it.

They're now looking for some possible debris off the west coast of Australia.

On the one hand it looks a bit of a shambles but on the other, when there's no radar info or mayday call to track, it must be like trying to find a grain of sand on a football pitch.

The theories and contradictions are remarkable. My theory: plane catches fire, pilot turns toward alternate airports, but crew and pax are quickly overwhelmed by smoke etc, aircraft is not yet established in descent, flies on full of dead folk, finally crashes/ breaks apart. The current search for the bits that have been seen might be in the right ballpark, though seems too far for a stricken/burning aircraft to get to.

smiss

From what I've read, the problem with the fire theory is that the transponders have several backup units in other parts of the plane so they can't all be taken out in one go plus there would/should have been a call on the radio to say they had a fire. And no other air traffic saw a streaming plume.

Wonder how true this could be?

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh ... ical-fire/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

My current tinfoil hat theory , The plane is fine landed somewhere after the transponders are disabled and is currently being filled to the brim with explosives to be flown and detonated who knows where.

Woodee wrote:Wonder how true this could be?

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh ... ical-fire/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That one seems to be doing the rounds a lot and also seems to be rubbish as you can't knock everything out with a fire in one place.

I found this interesting...

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It's the worlds stealthiest plane (no offense to the poor souls on-board & their families)

HAHA!!

I heard the other day they thought it might have had something to do with pirates, maybe someone downloaded it.

Lost 2?

Was Hurley on board?

I'm keeping an open mind on it.

I've heard some interesting hypotheses but not giving too much credence to any of them.

I saw the The Herald Sun newspaper on twitter stating "Flight MH370 may have sunk".

Really, you don't say...

There is actually a Perth in Tassie.

Flinty72 wrote:I saw the The Herald Sun newspaper on twitter stating "Flight MH370 may have sunk".

Really, you don't say...

I think they're probably referring to the floating objects which have attracted so much attention recently.

I doubt if many media organisations are pinning their stories on any one hypothesis - I certainly wouldn't.

Like me, they're keeping their options open.

New satellite tracking data suggests it was indeed in the area they're currently looking.

The Malaysian government have announced it did ditch in the sea.

Now just a question of finding the black boxes to find out why it was in completely the wrong direction and 1500 miles from a runway when it ran out of fuel.

Been waiting to use this...

Big Kev wrote: Now just a question of finding the black boxes to find out why it was in completely the wrong direction and 1500 miles from a runway when it ran out of fuel.

And since it took them 2 years to find the box from AF447 when they knew exactly where it crashed... Well, I don't think we'll see it anytime soon. I don't even know if it would provide the answers people are after either.

Yeah the main problem after actually locating them is that they might be so deep they can't easily get to them. I think the pingers keep going for 30 days so hopefully they can get some indication of where they might be.

Big Kev wrote:Yeah the main problem after actually locating them is that they might be so deep they can't easily get to them. I think the pingers keep going for 30 days so hopefully they can get some indication of where they might be.

What a nightmare, pingers that last for 30 days

Big Kev wrote:Yeah the main problem after actually locating them is that they might be so deep they can't easily get to them. I think the pingers keep going for 30 days so hopefully they can get some indication of where they might be.

The problem is they still haven't found a conclusive debris field yet. That means the actual location of the crash won't be known for a while yet because any surface debris will have drifted quite some distance in the last two weeks.

There is another problem. The sea floor in that part of the world is almost unknown. There has never before been a need to map it. We do know it is very mountainous and also very deep and that's about it.

Chances of finding flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder? JD's prediction: slim to impossible.

Still ,they might get lucky (we hope).

The lesson of all of this is that things like ACARS should not be able to be switched off and should be broadcasting more than every 30 minutes.

Debris field? Have they found any debris at all?

They're now saying they have identified 122 new objects on satellite and they've split the search field in to east and west sections to try and recover something to prove they're actually in the right place.
I think it was very preemptive to say it has actually ditched there without some physical proof. Sure the evidence suggests that's the case but until they get a physical item it's still just an educated guess.

J.D. wrote:The lesson of all of this is that things like ACARS should not be able to be switched off and should be broadcasting more than every 30 minutes.

That's a tough one - as I understand it, the principle is that anything electrical or powered, which could be the source of smoke or fire, or could potentially interfere with any other equipment, should be able to be shut down by the crew.