MH370 missing

[pcolbeck]

Is it possible that the pilots wanted to claim asylum in Britain or some other western country, so simply decided to fly the plane there? Maybe they intended to make a secret landing in a field and escape.
That would explain why the electronics were turned off and why no traces have been found -they're all looking in the wrong place.
Didn't something say it had started to head west?

A 777 isn't a Cessna Cub, you cant land it in a field you need about a mile of nice smooth tarmac or concrete to set one down on.
Plus they had nowhere near enough fuel to make it anywhere near a western country.

[TimC]

Is it possible that the pilots wanted to claim asylum in Britain or some other western country, so simply decided to fly the plane there? Maybe they intended to make a secret landing in a field and escape.
That would explain why the electronics were turned off and why no traces have been found -they're all looking in the wrong place.
Didn't something say it had started to head west?

No.

If a Malaysian national wanted to claim asylum in UK (and why would they?), they could get on a plane to London. Malaysia is not Soviet-era Russia.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

All that said, the field of the unlikely is looking more and more likely to contain the answer!

Yes.  For a start we are all assuming that the missing plane went downwards.  How about it didn't and actually went upwards, attracted or repelled by some monstrous, previously un-encountered force?   Some unexpected consequence of climate change, maybe?

[TimC]

And we're back to aliens...

[ian]

<snip> Or possibly Moby. <snip>

Having met you, I can see why that might be 
Back o/t now, please.

And that's Moby the pop thing not Moby the big fish with authority issues.

And we're back to aliens...

Has anyone considered reverse gravity? Perhaps we should be looking up.

[Panoramix]

What about the pilot was a fan of "lost" and crash landed in a remote atoll.

[mrcharly-YHT]

We have at least one SME (Subject Matter Expert) here, can they answer this question:

On a modern airliner such as the 777, is it possible for the pilot to turn off all transponder systems?

[Euan Uzami]

A 777 isn't a Cessna Cub, you cant land it in a field you need about a mile of nice smooth tarmac or concrete to set one down on.
Plus they had nowhere near enough fuel to make it anywhere near a western country.

Yes, but they might have THOUGHT you could.

I'll be keeping my eyes peeled in Lincolnshire anyway.

 

No.

If a Malaysian national wanted to claim asylum in UK (and why would they?), they could get on a plane to London. Malaysia is not Soviet-era Russia.

Err...yeah, but then they would have had to go through security and might be sent back.
This way they just blend in, get a job in a car wash, and if the authorities come they just pretend they've lost their passport.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Has anyone considered reverse gravity? Perhaps we should be looking up.

All that said, the field of the unlikely is looking more and more likely to contain the answer!

Yes.  For a start we are all assuming that the missing plane went downwards.  How about it didn't and actually went upwards, attracted or repelled by some monstrous, previously un-encountered force?   Some unexpected consequence of climate change, maybe?

Proof that you don't read my posts.  Now I know I can say what I like about you and you won't find out unless someone grasses.

[mrcharly-YHT]

say wah?

Ben, are you seriously suggesting that the pilot of a major airliner wouldn't know:
A) How much fuel he needed to fly from point a to point b
B) What sort of runway he needed.

[clarion]

We have at least one SME (Subject Matter Expert) here, can they answer this question:

On a modern airliner such as the 777, is it possible for the pilot to turn off all transponder systems?

That question was asked and answered upthread:

There are a number of pilot-controlled transmitters - 2 or 3 VHF radios, 2 HF radios, 2 Satcom radios, a transponder with 2 transmitters. All of these can be turned off from the flight deck. However, the aircraft will have a number of other automated engineering datalinks with the ground which generally can't be turned off, and may have also had ADS (Automated Dependent Surveillance) which is a direct datalink to ATC available in many parts of the world. There may also have been cabin telephone/cellphone/Internet systems which aren't directly controlled from the flight deck, but may be turned off elsewhere in the aircraft. That's an awful lot of communications to neutralise!

[mrcharly-YHT]

Doh, I  forgot he'd listed which ones aren't under pilot control.

My money is still on missile strike. Even something as major as a wing fell off, there would be transmissions.

[TimC]

Who would have fired this missile? From where? Who (other than governments) in the area has large ground-to-air missiles with the range and speed to take out a target at 35,000ft? What political reasons would there be for such a strike?

Missiles do not generally destroy large targets, they incapacitate them to the point that they fall apart. Debris would be scattered over a very wide area and, given that there's no shooting war going on between Malaysia and Vietnam, the event would likely have been noticed (not least by American and Chinese surveillance satellites) and commented on by someone.

At the moment, I'm wondering if they hit another, un-notified, aircraft. Which could have had the same effect, of course, but which doesn't need premeditated murderous intent.

[Pippa]

I was wondering TimC - have there been any industry wide repercussions of this yet? Maybe repercussions is the wrong word, but are there general things like keep an eye out for aliens/missiles/other planes or making sure there are transponder systems that can't be turned off by the pilot, or being more prudent around that area etc etc - I don't really know what these might be so I'm just speculating, and I guess some of the potential action points won't be actionable until what happened to MH370 is known. Anyway, I'm just curious to know what effect it has had on the wider industry at this stage?

I started thinking about this when someone asked me if I was nervous about flying to France on Sunday - I'm not, certainly not more so than before MH370, but clearly some people think I should be.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Who would have fired this missile? From where? Who (other than governments) in the area has large ground-to-air missiles with the range and speed to take out a target at 35,000ft?

I'm thinking fired from warship. As has happened before.

What political reasons would there be for such a strike?

Incompetence. Not admitted to due to reluctance to admit to said incompetence.

At the moment, I'm wondering if they hit another, un-notified, aircraft. Which could have had the same effect, of course, but which doesn't need premeditated murderous intent.

That does make more sense than a random missile - at 35 000 feet and not posted as missing, I guess it would have to be a military aircraft. Which begs the question; why hasn't someone owned up to it?

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

When I see my cousin on Saturday I will get the answer.  Unless it is covered by the Official Secrets Act.  He has an unnerving way of going deaf when he doesn't want to discuss something.

I may not be able to comment on this topic after the weekend.  In which case you will understand that I have inside information that I cannot disclose to you lot.

[TimC]

I was wondering TimC - have there been any industry wide repercussions of this yet? Maybe repercussions is the wrong word, but are there general things like keep an eye out for aliens/missiles/other planes or making sure there are transponder systems that can't be turned off by the pilot, or being more prudent around that area etc etc - I don't really know what these might be so I'm just speculating, and I guess some of the potential action points won't be actionable until what happened to MH370 is known. Anyway, I'm just curious to know what effect it has had on the wider industry at this stage?

I started thinking about this when someone asked me if I was nervous about flying to France on Sunday - I'm not, certainly not more so than before MH370, but clearly some people think I should be.

No, nothing as yet, Pippa. Until something is known, you've no idea which stable door the horse bolted from. The passport thing may have had some repercussions for border agencies, but that's about it. But it's the major topic of conversation among aircrews the world over.

Who would have fired this missile? From where? Who (other than governments) in the area has large ground-to-air missiles with the range and speed to take out a target at 35,000ft?

I'm thinking fired from warship. As has happened before.

What political reasons would there be for such a strike?

Incompetence. Not admitted to due to reluctance to admit to said incompetence.

I can only think of two high-level airliners lost to missile fire* - the Iran Air flight shot down by the USS Vincennes in 1988, and the Siberian Air flight shot down by the Ukrainian military in 2001. One was a misidentification at a time of a de-facto shooting war, the other an accident well outside the range capabilities of the missile (but probably caused by a collision with parts of the missile in its descent after running out of fuel). A degree of incompetence was implicit in both cases, but neither event went unnoticed! In fact, the Siberian shoot-down was detected by the CIA pretty much instantly, and the Iran Air shoot-down was a deliberate act and seen by many agencies in the area.

*On checking my facts, the Iran Air flight was only at 14,000ft - very low for a jet airliner. So the only high-level ground-to-air missile shoot-down of an airliner is the Siberian Air one. There have been several shot down by fighters, but these have all been deliberate acts where the facts were more or less easily established.

[clarion]

KAL007 was shot down by an AAM.

[Euan Uzami]

say wah?

Ben, are you seriously suggesting that the pilot of a major airliner wouldn't know:
A) How much fuel he needed to fly from point a to point b
B) What sort of runway he needed.

well he probably knew it isn't SUPPOSED to land on anything other than a runway but he might have thought it possible albeit a bit bumpy.
I don't know.it probably didn't, but it did start heading west, and like they're saying, when you've eliminated the probable, you have to look to the improbable.

[PeteB99]

KAL007 was shot down by an AAM.

No KAL007 was shot down by a soviet fighter.

[clarion]

Using two Kaliningrad R-8 AAMs.

[TimC]

KAL007 was shot down by an AAM.

Yes. Fired from a Russian SU-15 fighter. Being AAMs (air-to-air missiles), they don't come under the category of missiles fired from the ground. Which was the point of my post - in which I also mentioned airliners shot down by fighters.

[clarion]

Do people misunderstand what AAM means?  Where else would you shoot one from?  A balloon?  A pigeon?

[PeteB99]

Tim, RE the collision theory. If an aircraft were flying an unnotified flight through the area would they not choose a flight level that isn't used by the commercial traffic? Say the 29,500 that the aircraft crossing the Malay peninsular is supposed to have been at? Or maybe it was transiting between two flight levels and got very unlucky?

[TimC]

Do people misunderstand what AAM means?  Where else would you shoot one from?  A balloon?  A pigeon?

We were talking about airliners being shot down by surface-to-air missiles. As I explained, airliners shot down by fighters are really a quite different category because the shootdown must be deliberate, and a significant number of people will know about it, whereas it's conceivable that a surface-to-air missile strike may happen by accident (as in the Ukrainian case), and may not be known about - at least initially. The lack of a shooting war or military exercises in the area makes either possiblity rather unlikely, however - and I doubt anyone other than Singapore in that area has SAMs capable of downing a plane at 35,000ft.