Twenty passengers on missing flight 370 worked for Freescale Semiconductors

[Kjelt]

Just came in that this was investigated and found to be erroneous.

This is interesting, according to the Wallstreet Journal, the engines had their own datalogging system that kept sending information for another 5 hours after the plane dissapeared:

Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours, based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co.  777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program.

[dexters_lab]

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.

indeed, and i hope they are never quoted here again. They are tabloid scum.

[echen1024]

Apparently a Chinese satellite has now spotted large floating objects.

[GeoffS]

Apparently a Chinese satellite has now spotted large floating objects.

Already discounted as being anything to do with the missing plane.

[echen1024]

Apparently a Chinese satellite has now spotted large floating objects.

Already discounted as being anything to do with the missing plane.

Dammit CNN

[KedasProbe]

Just a theory:
Maybe it was hijacked and tried to fly under the radar to crash on a city but the pilot tried to stop it by landing on the water but the landing went wrong....and they basically sunk with little debris.

edit
Terrorist may still wait to claim it if there is more coming (not showing their hand), or they need to update pre-recorded videos since the plan partially failed.

[dr.diesel]

Ok, so now they are saying the engine data stream says the plane was flying for 4-5 hours post transponder failure.  Why the heck did it take them several days to realize the engine data had still been flowing in? 

Some classified BS reason while thousands of man hours were spent searching the ocean?

And why the hell does the transponder have an off switch?

[JoeyP]

Ok, so now they are saying the engine data stream says the plane was flying for 4-5 hours post transponder failure.  Why the heck did it take them several days to realize the engine data had still been flowing in? 

Some classified BS reason while thousands of man hours were spent searching the ocean?

Already determined to be a false report. See post above.

And why the hell does the transponder have an off switch?

A few reasons. The most important being that transponders can and do malfunction, and can jam an entire radar area. ATC will request "stop squawk" to tell the pilot to turn it off. Also, they are supposed to be off on the ground to prevent overloading radar systems in the vicinity of busy airports.

[dr.diesel]

A few reasons. The most important being that transponders can and do malfunction, and can jam an entire radar area. ATC will request "stop squawk" to tell the pilot to turn it off. Also, they are supposed to be off on the ground to prevent overloading radar systems in the vicinity of busy airports.

Mmmmm, likely some thought here could fix the issue, keeping them on 24-7 without causing an issue.  Losing a plane IMO is not an acceptable situation, this incident will probably drive some industry change, let's hope for the better.

Or they could just ask my wife, she knows everything, just ask her.  ha ha ha ha   

[JoeyP]

A few reasons. The most important being that transponders can and do malfunction, and can jam an entire radar area. ATC will request "stop squawk" to tell the pilot to turn it off. Also, they are supposed to be off on the ground to prevent overloading radar systems in the vicinity of busy airports.

Mmmmm, likely some thought here could fix the issue, keeping them on 24-7 without causing an issue.  Losing a plane IMO is not an acceptable situation, this incident will probably drive some industry change, let's hope for the better.

Or they could just ask my wife, she knows everything, just ask her.  ha ha ha ha   

Then they should just ask her where the plane is

[TerraHertz]

Gallows humor:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/malaysian-airlines-expands-investigation-to-includ,35524/
Malaysia Airlines Expands Investigation To Include General Scope Of Space, Time
'Why Are We Even Here?' - Officials

More seriously, my collection of MH370 news & commentary links:
  http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt

[nuhamind2]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-live-3239624

[amyk]

The plane has been missing for over a week now, and they're only now saying it went somewhere else...?

[EEVblog]

Now they are saying it flew for 7 hours after last contact and changed course. Could be anywhere on a 3rd of the planet.
And the captain is now starting to sound a bit iffy politically, and the plane flew above its service ceiling driving some speculation there.
One thing is for sure, this is one of the best who-done-it's in a long time 

[Wytnucls]

My gut feel is that the crew lost consciousness after some mechanical failure and the plane was left to wander erratically until it ran out of fuel. Auto pilot and transponder could have been turned off by mistake during the emergency. I'm not sure how ACARS failed, but there may be a simple explanation. It is not unusual for ACARS to go off line for quite a while, during a flight.

Hijacking or pilot willful misconduct doesn't make much sense to me, but should be investigated.

[TerraHertz]

One thing is for sure, this is one of the best who-done-it's in a long time 

Moderator: As you seem unable to make a post on the subject without invoking some personal conspiracy theory, most of the content of your post has been deleted. If for no other reason that consideration for those missing on flight MH370 and those missing them.
I've left in the link to Conspiracy Central should users be interested in your views.


Anyway, this is of course all speculation. To be immediately hotly disputed, ridiculed and probably deleted, I expect. Never mind, just more entertainment for me.
Still updating my list of MH370 news articles: http://everist.org/archives/links/_Flight_MH370_disappearance_links.txt

[EEVblog]

My gut feel is that the crew lost consciousness after some mechanical failure and the plane was left to wander erratically until it ran out of fuel.

Doubt it. Apparently they went via known waypoints that were totally different from their normal flight path.
Also, the crew have oxygen at the ready, and I'd imagine that any extreme G induced blackouts (that didn't break the plane apart) would only be temporary.

Hijacking or pilot willful misconduct doesn't make much sense to me, but should be investigated.

Having just finished reading QF32 (awesome book), my feeling is that it's got to be a deliberate act is the only logical conclusion. These planes just have far too many redundant backup systems to not get out a mayday call or some other indication of trouble. If it was total sudden breakup then that would be understandable, but otherwise, no way.

[nctnico]

Maybe the 'authorities' know more than they are letting on, maybe they don't. Either way it seems the public are being drip fed as to the aircrafts final detour/route/location, why I have no idea. It's either because they need to, or it's

From what I've read it seems there is an alternative airplane tracking system besides the transponder beacon. Ofcourse they won't divulge too much about how that works. I just hope they landed somewhere. It wouldn't make sense to hijack a plane and fly it over the ocean along standard waypoints but run out of fuel before reaching a destination. There are enough rural places (Indonesia) with dense jungle forrests over there where it would be hard to find plane even if it's really big.

[tom66]

I don't understand why a battery-backup GPS tracker which sends data via satellite (e.x. Inmarsat) isn't standard.
They have them in each engine, how hard would it be to add a GPS receiver and set the data rate to every 30 seconds?

[Wytnucls]

@ Dave:
Don't forget the human factors.
The planes have many system redundancies, but the captain may not have been in the cockpit at the time of the incident. The first officer had just transferred on the B-777. This was his first big jet and he was a rookie.
A real explosive depressurization is very stressful. Noise, wind, cold and thick mist making it difficult to see anything in the cockpit. At 35,000ft, they had 10-15 seconds to fit their O2 masks, assuming the O2 system was not damaged.
The crew of the Air France A-330 lost control of the aircraft, but it was airborne for about 5 minutes before it hit the water and they never had time for a mayday call.
The area is full of waypoints and airways and primary radars are not precise at long range. It could be just a coincidence.
An inflight hi-jack is not impossible, but very difficult nowadays, with a protected cockpit door.
A rogue suicidal crewmember is a possibility, but it has its problems too. A pilot wouldn't climb his airplane above max certified ceiling from 35,000ft to 45,000ft, as radar plot analysis conveys. Then why fly for 5-6 hours before crashing into the sea, assuming the southern route is the more plausible one (too many radars on the northern track). So far, there is also no real evidence of unstable personalities among the crew.

All very mysterious so far, with no simple explanation yet.

[KJDS]

I thought the Australian over the horizon radar looked further than it did.

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

So it looks a long way, but not quite far enough

[Bored@Work]

It's either because they need to, or it's because the 'authorities' are pretty much incompetent and don't really know what they are doing, or maybe they are just trying to cover their arses.

I think they are incompetent and later started trying to cover their arse. Right from the beginning it seemed that every official and his dog with a more or less impressive job title or military rank was holding press conferences or at least doing press releases, and throwing around "facts" (dodgy theories made up out of thin air or isolated data, not related to the event).

Later in the game, after many false statements they started trying to save their face. Partly by putting out more junk press releases and speculation.

What they lacked was someone really high up who whipped all the show-offs into shape and made them shut up. Then coordinating the collection and analysis of facts and running them through experts, not some brass keen to read their names in the press.

[tom66]

What if it wasn't terrorism or anything nefarious?

There was a case of Swissair 111 where a fire in the cockpit started taking out systems one by one - initially they just had malfunctions, loss of autopilot, then loss of control.

Maybe they did not report the occurrence because they could not, the radio had been damaged by the fire, which slowly took out systems, it explains the long delay between shutting off the transponders (why would someone wait ~20min between the two?)

Although terrorism/deliberate act seems a lot more likely.

[Bored@Work]

Maybe they did not report the occurrence because they could not, the radio had been damaged by the fire,

Nice idea, but if the latest time-line is to be believed (...) then the last radio contact with the "All right, good night" message was after some of the communication systems were already turned off.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/flight-mh370-last-message-communications-disabled-malaysia

[Wytnucls]

ACARS failure wouldn't be reported to air traffic control. It would be listed in the post flight failure report and ground engineers would run a test on it and fix it before the next flight.