Malaysia Jet missing-Officials conclude crash in Indian ocean/all lives presumed lost

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by oilyfan

For flying internationally your passport information has to be provided prior to check in.

?

You mean as part of the check in process. Correct?

[vegasbound]

I totally get them investigating very possible angle, thoroughly but wouldn't someone be able to pick the plane off of radar if they turned back, went off course, etc? Where would the plane have landed? A 777 is pretty big to hide. IMO it's looking like terrorism more and more to me.

[Righteous1]

Scary stuff, worst nightmare come true. Maybe an emp went off in flight? Seems more n more like a terrorist attack, although no group has come forward claiming it was them.

[trackercowe]

Well can't a plane disappear from radar if it goes through bad weather, is set way off course, or flies below a certain measurement? I am sure it's happened before, where a plane has disappeared off radar for a while, only to eventually turn up safe and sound. Probably extremely unlikely now, since they've had no contact with the plane or any passengers for over a day now. I mean unless it landed in the mountains or on an island or something that has to be an extremely unlikely scenario.

[flamesfan6]

Originally Posted by vegasbound

I totally get them investigating very possible angle, thoroughly but wouldn't someone be able to pick the plane off of radar if they turned back, went off course, etc? Where would the plane have landed? A 777 is pretty big to hide. IMO it's looking like terrorism more and more to me.

pretty big jump to just say terrorism, only real evidence of that right now is the use of the stolen passports.

for reference it took 2 years to locate AF447

[jeffman]

Apparantly the two stolen passport holders bought tickets from the same source and sat next to each other on the plane as well

[Mango]

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268744/con...tguid=spPSWD36

"We are looking at the possibility of an aircraft air turn back, in which case different locations will have to be identified," Hishammuddin said.

Is that possible? Wouldn't some sort of signal or radar be aware if they turned around?

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by Bagor

?

You mean as part of the check in process. Correct?

Yes as part of the check in process. I guess what I was saying is that the information has to be provided before you can be checked in.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by jeffman

Apparantly the two stolen passport holders bought tickets from the same source and sat next to each other on the plane as well

no?! ... where did you see that? That's pretty damning.

[sa226]

While I have no knowledge of the area in question. Radar coverage is not as widespread as you may think. Given the lack of information, it seems as though they were in an area without coverage.

[Mango]

Originally Posted by nik-

no?! ... where did you see that? That's pretty damning.

Looks like they were planning on heading to Europe via a number of connections. (image via reddit).

[nik-]

So it's possibly either two people who stole passports to migrate to Europe together, or two people in a plot.

But would terrorists bother going as far as to book a second connection? That seems unlikely.

[Ryan Coke]

Often in oceanic areas there is not radar coverage. Aircraft are controlled via HF radio contact with the appropriate ATC agency, however it is often outside radar range. So yes, it is entirely possible they were not being watched on any radar.

As was discussed, many aircraft (such as AF447 mentioned earlier) are equipped with flight data monitoring info which is automatically uplinked via satellite communications. However I don't believe it is required, and this aircraft may not have had it.

As for cause, it is the who knows stage. Have at all the wild guesses, but much like the Air France accident, it may well end up being quite a while before we know what it was, and it could be something no one has even thought of yet.

[simmer2]

I travel a lot for work...reading these stories makes me ill.

I experienced terrible jetlag over the Atlantic in December and all my thoughts went to my family.

Cannot begin to imagine the realization those passengers experienced on the crash.

Condolences to everyone and their families.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by simmer2

I experienced terrible jetlag over the Atlantic in December and all my thoughts went to my family.

You mean turbulence right?

[JonDuke]

EDIT:

Press conference just ended.
The debris found earlier are confirmed to be not from the missing aircraft.
They are now checking the CCTV footage from the immigration gate regarding the fake passport.
No news about the oil slick.

I think it's amazing that we can track and control and vehicle on Mars, but can't figure out where this plane is.

[Regulator75]

Is there some sort of "Bermuda Triangle" on that side of the world?

Has there been reports of other crafts vanishing around the last known co-ordinates?

[oilyfan]

Air France 447 went down in similar circumstances (at cruise altitude, without any distress call) except AF447 was going through extreme weather in an area known for it. The only reason we knew where AF447 went down was because of the automated messages the plane sent to Air France operations centre when it detected anomalous conditions on the plane.

Air France opted to install the ACARS system on the Airbus 340 primarily for troubleshooting and maintenance, the Boeing 777 has a similar option but it is up to the airline to install the system. Doesn't look like Malaysian opted to do so. I have always questioned why there hasnt been a move to fully automated data exchange between the aircraft and the ground - supplying operating information. I realize that this is an immense amount of data - the transfer part of equation is the problem, you would have to use satellites or transfer an this immense amount of data. At some point in time we will see a move to this.

They will find this aircraft soon enough, then it is a question of time to find the data recorders, this is a puzzling incident though, a lot of signs point to an on board explosion.

[scotty2hotty]

Originally Posted by nik-

So it's possibly either two people who stole passports to migrate to Europe together, or two people in a plot.

But would terrorists bother going as far as to book a second connection? That seems unlikely.

I just read that China has very lax visa checks when a traveller has an onward connection booked. So it actually seems very likely that this is what someone would do who wanted to avoid scrutiny.

[Table 5]

One of the reasons I personally don't think it's terrorism, is that you'd think someone would've claimed responsibility by now. People typically commit these acts to get attention towards their agenda. Dying in anonymity seems a little pointless.