[Regina]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Yes, 10km.

We may have just solved the missing plane mystery........metric navigational error.

[andyt]

$1:

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's military believes a jetliner missing for almost four days turned and flew hundreds of kilometers to the west after it last made contact with civilian air traffic control off the country's east coast, a senior officer told Reuters on Tuesday.
Malaysian authorities have previously said flight MH370 disappeared about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for the Chinese capital Beijing.
"It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait," the senior military officer, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.
That would appear to rule out sudden catastrophic mechanical failure, as it would mean the plane flew around 500 km (350 miles) at least after its last contact with air traffic control, although its transponder and other tracking systems were off.

Malaysia's Berita Harian newspaper quoted air force chief Rodzali Daud as saying the plane was last detected at 2.40 a.m. by military radar near the island of Pulau Perak at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca. It was flying about 1,000 meters lower than its previous altitude, he was quoted as saying.

The effect of turning off the transponder is to make the aircraft inert to secondary radar, so civil controllers cannot identify it. Secondary radar interrogates the transponder and gets information about the plane's identity, speed and height.
It would however still be visible to primary radar, which is used by militaries.

[Count_Lothian]

Apparently on CBC today there was a blurb that the cell phones are ringing.

[Regina]

IF cell phones are live and ringing then it would be simple to find them. I doubt there is any truth to this at all........maybe just at the callers end they are ringing. No doubt family members have been calling those numbers since the first day and nothing has come of it.

[BartSimpson]

andyt andyt:

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.

Uh-huh. And the US has two destroyers searching off the coast of Vietnam just because of the scenery and the good pho they can get from the local fishermen.

[Count_Lothian]

Regina Regina:

IF cell phones are live and ringing then it would be simple to find them. I doubt there is any truth to this at all........maybe just at the callers end they are ringing. No doubt family members have been calling those numbers since the first day and nothing has come of it.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/20 ... nes-crash/

If you phone someone and they are out of service areas the phone company tells you.

if it rings the call went through but was not answered.

[Regina]

Nope

[Jabberwalker]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

andyt andyt:

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.

Uh-huh. And the US has two destroyers searching off the coast of Vietnam just because of the scenery and the good pho they can get from the local fishermen.

... in the Gulf of Tonkin, no doubt ...

[BartSimpson]

Count_Lothian Count_Lothian:

If you phone someone and they are out of service areas the phone company tells you.

if it rings the call went through but was not answered.

If it rings and is not answered it can mean:

1. The call was not answered but the phone is still working.

2. The phone is out of range, turned off, or destroyed and the cell phone provider just lets calls to such phones ring.

3. The voicemail or other call forwarding features have not been enabled.

On the latter point, when I go to Hawaii next week I'll enable call forwarding on my work phone and anyone calling it will be rerouted to yet another phone. My phone will be in my safe at home with the battery removed from it. Yet if you call the line you'll still get a ring until the call is forwarded.

The ring doesn't mean anything at all.

[BartSimpson]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

andyt andyt:

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.

Uh-huh. And the US has two destroyers searching off the coast of Vietnam just because of the scenery and the good pho they can get from the local fishermen.

... in the Gulf of Tonkin, no doubt ...

As a matter of fact, yes. Between Vietnam and Hainan Island.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

andyt andyt:

$1:

A senior source involved in preliminary investigations in Malaysia said the failure to find any debris indicated the plane may have broken up mid-flight, which could disperse wreckage over a very wide area.
"The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet," said the source.
Asked about the possibility of an explosion, the source said there was no evidence of foul play and that the aircraft could have broken up due to mechanical causes.
Still, the source said the closest parallels were the bomb explosions on board an Air India jetliner in 1985 when it was over the Atlantic Ocean and a Pan Am aircraft over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. Both planes were cruising at around 31,000 feet at the time.

The source forgot about the problem some 747s had a while back. Seems a few 747s had blown up in mid-air with no apparent reason. After many tests and a lengthy investigation, they discovered that wires for some electrical systems ran through the tops of the fuel tanks.
Conclusion: fumes from near empty fuel tanks would ignite if/when there was a spark from the wiring so they quit running wires through the tanks.

I'm not saying the 777 suffers from the same design flaw, but it could just as easily be something similar.

[Jabberwalker]

It's starting to sound as if Dr. Evil has them prisoners in a hollowed out volcanic island, somewhere.

[PluggyRug]

http://www.gcmap.com/faq/etops

[Count_Lothian]

well it's now been told us that they seemed to have flown down to below radar detection.

It looks like the kidnap scenario

[Jabberwalker]

It'll be a special forces Olympics ...