[BartSimpson]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

the plane disappeared no where near the ridiculous sea claims of China



it disappeared well to the west

And the news that's breaking right now:

$1:

An airliner enroute to Hong Kong Monday reported via radio that its pilots saw a large field of debris at a position about 92 kilometres southeast of of Ho Chi Minh City.

The new info puts the airliner well into the contested area and if the PLAN got itchy about the plane then they may well have fired on it mistaking it for a military flight.

The same thing happened with the US some years back in the Persian Gulf when an Iranian civilian flight didn't respond to messages on the guard channel (because they weren't monitoring it) and the USS Vicennes shot it down. It's been 26 years so I guess it may have been time for history to repeat itself.

[ShepherdsDog]

debris has yet to be confirmed....ships in the area weren`t reporting anything, and it should have been picked up by Saigon ATC

[BartSimpson]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

debris has yet to be confirmed....ships in the area weren`t reporting anything, and it should have been picked up by Saigon ATC

"Should have"

Pretty much everyone is in CYA mode right now so it'll be a while before the truth comes to light and I imagine the truth will end up being mocked as some sort of conspiracy theory.

One thing to keep clear here: Airliners don't just spontaneously disintegrate, at least not since the DeHavilland Comet.

[andyt]

Actually there was a case of an airliner around Phoenix that was able to land with a cracked frame, but would have disintegrated if it had been at cruising altitudes. Short flight planes that often pressurise and depressurise the cabin are very stressful on the airframe. (tho this was not a short flight plane)

This airliner had damage to the tail recently, that was "fixed." Maybe malaysian fixed isn't the same as Canadian fixed, which as we know isn't always perfect either.

The US says it has good satellite coverage of the area and saw no explosion. Guess the people watching the satellites aren't in on Bart's cornspiracy theory, because if this was done by China, and the US had evidence, we'd have the info by now.

Lose a tail and the plane would spiral into the ground right now. Don't know if it would make the plane disintegrate tho, and the absence of debris apparently indicates the plane disintegrated at high altitude.

Or, there's info the plane was turning back home before radar lost contact. Didn't somebody here say it could have been hijacked. Maybe forced to fly at low altitude and ditched somewhere quiet? Who knows.

[andyt]

Search now expanded to the Malacca strait, on the west of Malaysia because the plane changed course just before disappearing.

[Count_Lothian]

lot of cell phones on board with GPS.
could they not look into those records
something is odd here and it sounds like a mass kidnapping

[DrCaleb]

Count_Lothian Count_Lothian:

lot of cell phones on board with GPS.
could they not look into those records

In order to have records, there needs to be a cell tower nearby. Not many of those in the middle of a sea.

[commanderkai]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/11/world/asi ... ?hpt=hp_t1

$1:

Among the evidence pointing in that direction, he said: news from Malaysian authorities that one of two people said to be traveling on stolen passports, an Iranian, was trying to travel to his mother in Germany.

Further, there's no evidence to suggest either was connected to any terrorist organizations, according to Malaysian investigators.

Interesting...the article doesn't really talk about the older Iranian who was also flying on a stolen passport, just the younger one (question, shouldn't he have not been able to book a flight using the stolen Austrian passport to Germany? You'd think they'd be marked as stolen by now), but, we'll see.

[andyt]

The passports were long ago entered in Interpol's database, but interpol says few countries bother to access it during check in.

[Regina]

Count_Lothian Count_Lothian:

lot of cell phones on board with GPS.
could they not look into those records
something is odd here and it sounds like a mass kidnapping

As the Dr. said you need cell towers. Even if there were towers below, cell phones don't work for much more than 30-45 seconds after take off in a jet of that size. Flights around 15,000 get the odd signal but that's about it. I was on a private charter a few years ago where one of our flight attendants broke the cell phone/aircraft myth. She said it wouldn't affect anything in the cockpit and we would lose our signal shortly after take off. They want everything turned off so you listen to their instructions. We flew return from Montreal to Augusta, GA and while flying over New York, Washington and other US cities I stuck my cell up against the window...........not one bar ever appeared. We were up at around 33,000' and I lost cell service about 30 seconds out each time.

[andyt]

$1:

Malaysia Airlines, meanwhile, said it is investigating an Australian television report that the co-pilot on the missing plane had invited two women into the cockpit during a flight two years ago.
Jonti Roos described the encounter on Australia's "A Current Affair." The airline said it wouldn't comment until its investigation is complete.
Roos said she and her friend were allowed to stay in the cockpit during the entire one-hour flight on Dec. 14, 2011, from Phuket, Thailand, to Kuala Lumpur. She said the arrangement did not seem unusual to the plane's crew.
"Throughout the entire flight, they were talking to us and they were actually smoking throughout the flight," Roos said.

[DrCaleb]

Regina Regina:

We were up at around 33,000' and I lost cell service about 30 seconds out each time.

Most cell towers range is about 2km, with 70km being the outside limit. Most phones can't transmit that far, so being 10 miles up pretty much puts you out of range. The plane has enough power to act as a tower and relay your call to another tower (which is what some airlines are starting to do) but there is still the 70km limit.

[Regina]

Interpol is saying the missing flight is not likely the result of terrorism. One of the passports was being used for an asylum seeker. Still no trace of debris but the search are is going in a much different direction. Its now being made public that the military was tracking it for a time.

[ShepherdsDog]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Regina Regina:

We were up at around 33,000' and I lost cell service about 30 seconds out each time.

Most cell towers range is about 2km, with 70km being the outside limit. Most phones can't transmit that far, so being 10 miles up pretty much puts you out of range. The plane has enough power to act as a tower and relay your call to another tower (which is what some airlines are starting to do) but there is still the 70km limit.

I think you mean 10 kilometers up, not 10 miles which is 53 000 ft rather than the usual 30 - 35 000 ft cruising altitude

[DrCaleb]

Yes, 10km.