Quote:
Originally Posted by oilyfan
Only thing for me that points away from the pilots is the lack of a plan. So hijack a 777 with 8 hours of range, then head into the Indian Ocean?
I think this is a hijacker who entered the cabin somehow, then threatened the pilots asking them to fly somewhere. Pilots refuse and maybe there is a struggle back and forth, explaining altitude changes and the course changes. Finally pilots are killed? And the plane is on autopilot headed to nowhere?
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That's the interesting part to me too.
My thinking was that perhaps you've got a hijacker who has a plan for the aircraft - flying it into the Petronas towers, let's say - and knows enough to force the pilots to turn off the transponder & kill communications so as to avoid alerting anyone to the plane's new course. The pilots then appear to comply by abruptly changing course back to Malaysia, but head out over the Indian Ocean to prevent the plane from being crashed into anything but water. The hijackers finally get wise to this, force the pilot to change course North or South again ostensibly to go back to Malaysia, but again the pilots only appear to be heading back the way they came when in fact they're continuing to fly away from the intended target. Eventually there's a struggle for control of the plane or in runs out of fuel and disappears into the sea.
Is this plausible? I've no idea. But thinking the various scenarios through and knowing nothing about how the equipment works, once the comms systems are all down, what instruments would someone in that cockpit have to figure out their location? Would they still have gps? Wouldn't that be trackable somehow if they did?