Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

This is really catching my interest. I am extremely curious as to what happened with this plane. While I know it's not truly on Craigslist, I wonder where on earth it is why.

No wreckage found, no contact made by anyone either wanting a ransom or by any of the 227 passengers or 12 of the crew. Pings from the engines to a satellite and sent to Rolls-Royce continued for well over 6 hours after the transponder was intentionally turned off. Shortly after it was discovered the plane was missing, family members reported that when calling passengers phones, it would ring and go to voice mail. Had the phones been destroyed, it would simply go to voice mail. It's also been pointed out that at the point where the transponder was turned was the perfect spot to perform such as act as it was midway point where the crew was supposed to transfer communication from Malaysia to Vietnam. Additionally, it has been confirmed, through military radar, that the plane turned hard left and flew back over Malaysia toward the Malacca Strait, veered a couple of times and continued on. From there, who knows where it went.

It all simply puzzles me. If it was hijacked, or even simply overtaken by the flight crew themselves, how is there not one single call or communication by passengers to their families? Cell phones are very small, easy to conceal, and it takes only seconds to type a text. Where is the plane now? It's not like this thing can land anywhere unnoticed. If it were hijacked? Then why no communication by the masterminds of the operation with a demand for ransom or some other request. Why did the phones belonging to passengers still ring hours after it was lost and why could they not answer?

Anyone else as taken by this as me?

timdiggerm said:

ferris209 said:

Why did the phones belonging to passengers still ring hours after it was lost and why could they not answer?

 This part, at least, is not mysterious. The hijackers collected everyone's phones, but did not go through the tedious effort of turning them all off.

Although it does imply they were receiving cell service, no?

 Still, how did they manage to collect over 200 phones from people without one single text message or phone call being made? If I were in a hijacking situation, I'd try to text folks, even make a phone call wherein I do not speak, but let the other side hear. None of this happened. Where the passengers knocked out by some form of gas? Were their phones jammed by a device?

It's almost impossible to speculate here without veering into the sort of discussion that upsets Warb ergo my twinning it with conspiracy theory thread.

In the previous instance of a plane fitted with a transponder and GPS tracking vanishing without trace.

The main theory kicking around was the plane had been flown somewhere and sold for parts and the two poor unwitting accidental passengers were probably bumped off as they didn't seem to have the access or skills to switch off the equipment or fly the plane away.

We have a couple of people flying on stolen passports.

The possibility that it might be a reprisal after the events of last year.

We have a semiconductor chip experts on the plane with the millions that could worth.

The pilot was previously reported as being an average nice guy who would go out of his way to help everyone and known for being so enthusiastic about his job he openly used flight simulator programs at home and flew model aircraft. Now he is labelled as 'Fanatical' because he was photographed once wearing a slogan Tee-Shirt and the already known of home sim set up is reported as elaborate and 'uncovered in a search'.

And yet these things can be piloted remotely.

Speculation is justifiable, not all crimes are carried out by lone crackpots but by the nature of the information available these speculations will be along the same lines as conspiracy theories and a little bit of ignorance can go a long way to hysteria.

ferris209 said:

 Shortly after it was discovered the plane was missing, family members reported that when calling passengers phones, it would ring and go to voice mail. Had the phones been destroyed, it would simply go to voice mail.

 this has been explained

Bingowings said:

CNN

NBC

Warbler said:

ferris209 said:

 Shortly after it was discovered the plane was missing, family members reported that when calling passengers phones, it would ring and go to voice mail. Had the phones been destroyed, it would simply go to voice mail.

 this has been explained

Bingowings said:

CNN

NBC

 

Those 'explanations' were put out when the official story was the plane crashed in the South China sea.

We now have evidence it was flying long enough to have landed.

In which case those explanations, which rely on the phones not working the same way mine and probably everyone's reading this do (mine goes straight to voice mail when the phone is off or damaged and not the ring tone) are not necessary.

The phones pre-empted the revelations about the plane transponder going off and on and off again and the plane being tracked going the wrong way for several hours.

timdiggerm said:

ferris209 said:

timdiggerm said:

ferris209 said:

Why did the phones belonging to passengers still ring hours after it was lost and why could they not answer?

 This part, at least, is not mysterious. The hijackers collected everyone's phones, but did not go through the tedious effort of turning them all off.

Although it does imply they were receiving cell service, no?

 Still, how did they manage to collect over 200 phones from people without one single text message or phone call being made?

 Guns, I assume.

I agree, it's not a totally explains-everything solution, but it works well enough for me.

 no it is not a totally explains everything solution.  At very least, you'd have explain how guns got on board the plane. 

British Airways maybe not but British South American Airways had a bit of a reputation.

Now it seems the 'final' message of the pilot was sent after the communications were switched off and possibly the final satellite transmission were  from the ground.

Meanwhile Crimea...

Another round up.

a frightening thought has crossed my mind:  More and more it is looking like the plane was hijacked.  It is lookinig possible that the plane did indeed land somewhere.  Is it possilbe the plane was taken and landed somewhere and someone is planning to use the plane as a weapon in someway, 911 style?   It would exlain why no terrorists have claimed responsiblity for it, usually they like to brag about their atrocities.   It would also explain why there has been no list of damands or ransome asked for, usually when people take hostages they want something done or they want money.  Is it possible someone has the plane somewhere and is planning to filled with explosive materials and slam it into something?   

Warbler said:

a frightening thought has crossed my mind:  More and more it is looking like the plane was hijacked.  It is lookinig possible that the plane did indeed land somewhere.  Is it possilbe the plane was taken and landed somewhere and someone is planning to use the plane as a weapon in someway, 911 style?   It would exlain why no terrorists have claimed responsiblity for it, usually they like to brag about their atrocities.   It would also explain why there has been no list of damands or ransome asked for, usually when people take hostages they want something done or they want money.  Is it possible someone has the plane somewhere and is planning to filled with explosive materials and slam it into something?   

With the previous vanished plane (which was empty other than the two untrained technicians who vanished inside it) the main theory was the plane being broken up for spare parts or sold whole to somewhere where few questions would be asked. But that too could be put on ice to be turned into a missile of some kind.

Come to think of it Malaysia has a set of famous twin towers  owned by a corrupt oil giant suffering financial trouble and their government aren't very popular. It might be easier to get behind their regime if the opposition are seen to be into this sort of thing.

But that would just be a tin-foil hat wearing looney tunes conspiracy theory.

I don't like having to point this out but there are terrorist organizations with factions in that part of the world and they usually go unhindered by local authorities.  Having airplane parts would probably be most useful to them.

Jetrell Fo said:

I don't like having to point this out but there are terrorist organizations with factions in that part of the world and they usually go unhindered by local authorities.  Having airplane parts would probably be most useful to them.

Not just terrorists, you have essentially resistance groups (who don't go out of their way to attack civilians), you have common crims and poor people desperate enough to pick at what's left of the bird once everyone else has had a nibble.

Similarly as I linked to earlier some of the passengers are computer experts, there are a lot of Chinese middle class tourists.

They would be worth a fair amount in ransom.

Lots of potential motives for just stealing the plane and the people on board but not only that the cargo...who knows what's in the hold?

But as Warb points out the silence is the most notable feature of this story.

If the NSA and GCHQ are monitoring everything as they seem to be why the silence? It would be the best surveillance PR move to find this plane and prevent some horrible crime. Surely the Chinese know something?

The only people doing the talking are the Malaysian government and they lock people up on trumped up sex charges for daring not to agree with them.

Maybe it's handy having a distraction with Crimea happening in Russia, not happening in America and only being given lip-service by the EU?

Here's a more down to Earth speculation.

Here is a more imaginative one.

Other

News

It's officially downed.

So now all other speculations will be dubbed tin-foil hat protected.

*sigh*

no they won't.   

There was a lady who filed a report to the police about a crashed plane she had seen below a flight she was on, but it was dismissed. She was the only witness, but it was around the right place and on the same day it disappeared (but the police obviously hadn't heard any news about this at the time she filed the report). I wonder if they could have saved some of those people if they had listened to her (or if she made that up, because one would think that the police officers would remember the report when they heard the news).

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/witness-claims-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-day-vanished-article-1.1729375

I originally got the information second hand, but now that I've read an article about it, it looks far less likely that she actually saw it.

Warbler said:

*sigh*

 ?

SilverWook said:

The Malaysian government sure isn't going to win any sensitivity awards for the way they've handled this.

I'm no fan of their regime but to be fair to them it was a mysterious event taking place in physically dangerous and politically sensitive international waters and air spaces over a vast area and they kept people up to date as much as possible and broke the news in a very gentle way with medical teams on hand for distressed relatives.

However it would be a real kick in the teeth if they recovered the debris and it was just some alien spaceship or something.