Twenty passengers on missing flight 370 worked for Freescale Semiconductors

[Kjelt]

Now how about this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html

Good smartphones, which brand? 
Man this starts to look more and more like the plot of LOST.
Hopefully they solve this mystery soon so if it did crash the families may find closure. That french plane that crashed between south america and africa took 2 years to be found.

[EEVblog]

There goes the passport terrorist theory, just some dudes looking to sneak out of Iran:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26525281

[SeanB]

They definitely chose the wrong flight then.

My sister was due to fly on the Helderberg on that last flight, but was not on it, she was in Hong Kong, luggage was in Macau, so she took a flight to get it. Came back the next day.

[VK3DRB]

I thought this was a really nice gesture from TI. They didn't have to say anything but the fact that they did I think was really classy.

It is not classy, it is plain jumping to conclusions without any evidence the 20 passengers are dead, so why the condolences? All the 20 Freescale passengers might still be alive. Show us the evidence. A bit of science would go a long way rather than guessing. There are many possibilities in all of this.

Frederick Valentich (a former classmate of mine), has never been presumed dead. His disappearance has no explanation, even though there was an extensive Victorian government investigation into his disappearance. He may still be alive... somewhere.

[Psi]

I read that they are considering the possibility of a very small nuclear device that went off, one just enough to take out a plane and remove most of the traces of it.

Any nuclear blast would show up on a wide range of sensing satellites run by multiple countries.
Pretty sure it would show up on weather sats too.

[amyk]

Now how about this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html

Good smartphones, which brand? 
Man this starts to look more and more like the plot of LOST.
Hopefully they solve this mystery soon so if it did crash the families may find closure. That french plane that crashed between south america and africa took 2 years to be found.

Wouldn't they be able to triangulate the position if they were able to send/receive signals from the phone?

[EEVblog]

I read that they are considering the possibility of a very small nuclear device that went off, one just enough to take out a plane and remove most of the traces of it.

That's just so wacky.
But for giggles let's for a minute assume a terrorist organisation actually had a small scale nuclear device of such a description:
1) it would be infinitely easier to just detonate it in public place instead of trying to smuggle it though screening and rigging it to explode at altitude (or time in flight).
2) it would be far more beneficial politically and "terror-like" to use it in a populated city or some such.
3) they would be bragging from here to Timbuktu

The human mind is great at finding patterns were none exist, or the links are so ridiculously tenable, so best to occam's razor.
Most likely: The plane had a mechanical issue that caused it to break up in the air.
A small possibility: A pilot went rouge
Buckley's chance: A terrorist bomb of some sort
Sweet FA: A nuclear device

[BillyD]

"Buckley's chance", eh! Another Oz one which sent me to the google!
I'll be filing it alongside 'ducks guts. 

[Wytnucls]

Onboard ACARS didn't report any mechanical malfunction. (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, which sends out data automatically)
Malaysian and Singapore military are now saying they may have tracked the flight turning back and was last spotted over the straight of Malacca! (N65515 E1033443)
It gets stranger as time goes by.

If that is the case, it could mean that the crew were incapacitated (depressurization, smoke, toxic fumes?), with the autopilot switched off.

[EEVblog]

That french plane that crashed between south america and africa took 2 years to be found.

Not so. Major wreckage was found within 5 days, and some wreckage was found within a day or two, and 50 bodies were recovered within 2 weeks.
Not to mention they had live transmitted data from the plane showing faults:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447

[Kjelt]

Not so.

Indeed, it was the black box that took 2 years to be found.

[mos6502]

It's called explosive decompression, and it's happened before:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_611

I remember reading that the 777 in question had been involved in an accident a while back. Maybe an improper repair.

[Kjelt]

It's called explosive decompression, and it's happened before:

scary how fragile planes are,  and how long they are being operated.
The most remarkable thing I read is that airline companies are allowed to make their own repairs without final check from the factory.
This accident would never have happened if the repairs were made according to the guidelines of the Boeing company.

[CaptnYellowShirt]

scary how fragile planes are,  and how long they are being operated.

All the structural integrity of a beer can

[SeanB]

They have that all, the real time monitoring systems, the EPIRB with float activated by water pressure and even the FDR and CVR having both pingers and beepers. Not going to work if the plane impacts at 200 knots though. The issue is if there was a monitor, and as this is a very busy air corridor there should have been multiple radars watching, not all of them civilian.

[SeanB]

Recorders and beacon are designed to survive impact, but you can only go so far that way and have it work always. Problem is the beacon is a one time use item, and who knows when it was last changed, or just deferred as non critical. Recorders at least are used during maintenance if they are digital, and most now are. They give a lot of history data.

[JoeyP]

Now how about this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html

I'm not buying the "still active smart phone" theory one bit. For one thing, cell phones have a max range on the order of 10's of miles, so if any were still active they'd have the location of the aircraft located to within a short distance by merely seeing which cell tower was able to ping the phone(s). Also, it's likely that anywhere there was adequate cell coverage there's probably also ATC radar coverage. This is probably just people misunderstanding the behavior of the cell phones when they're inactive.

[Bored@Work]

Now how about this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html

It is the Daily Mail, aka Daily Fail. One of the worst British "news"papers. They don't check facts. Instead, if necessary they invent them.

[echen1024]

Now how about this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2578020/Why-cellphones-missing-Malaysian-Airlines-passengers-ringing-Family-members-claim-loved-ones-smartphones-active.html

It is the Daily Mail, aka Daily Fail. One of the worst British "news"papers. They don't check facts. Instead, if necessary they invent them.

They state "ELectronic Warfare." 20 were experts in technology. They were MANAGEMENT. And why would all 20 Freescale employees crash a commercial jet?

[Stonent]

Well now I'm seeing the active cell phone thing showing up on the major US news networks.

[Psi]

This is probably just people misunderstanding the behavior of the cell phones when they're inactive.

yep, its common for the ringing sound to be generated during call handoff while the system tries to contact the phone.
Cellphones are not the same as old analog phones where the ringing sound is actually ringing at the other end.

[Kjelt]

Well now I'm seeing the active cell phone thing showing up on the major US news networks.

Ofcourse or did you think US tv was any better then "One of the worst British "news"papers"?
They are all selling their credibility for ratings.

[pickle9000]

I always find aircraft stories interesting. This is one of my favorites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

There is no need to make things up in these cases the truth is far more interesting.

[mos6502]

I always find aircraft stories interesting. This is one of my favorites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

There is no need to make things up in these cases the truth is far more interesting.

That's nothing compared to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Baghdad_DHL_attempted_shootdown_incident



Probably the greatest feat in civil aviation ... only nobody gave a crap, because it was just a cargo plane.

[A Hellene]

They state "ELectronic Warfare." 20 were experts in technology. They were MANAGEMENT. And why would all 20 Freescale employees crash a commercial jet?

Exactly!
That is because dismissing from a job twenty working stiffs on salary is relative costless (in financial terms for any large company) to firing twenty management executives.

For anyone looking for patterns, the same 'plane accident' happened recently, wiping out a large portion of Poland’s leadership ('Poland’s management') in one fiery explosion.

'And in a chilling twist, it happened at the moment that Russia and Poland were beginning to come to terms with the killing of more than 20,000 members of Poland’s elite officer corps in the same place 70 years ago' according to The New York Times, referring to the WWII Katyn massacre.

<EDIT>
Why the Polish plane crash is called 'Katyn 2'


-George