Malaysian Airline loses contact with passenger airline

[rexsomnii]

.

[EmperorIS]

latest update:

They found a strange floating object off Tho Chu Island. Boats are going to investigate.

[1exotic]

starting to sound more like a hijacking to me
the fake passport thing Is sketchy as hell

[cdizzle_996]

How the fuck do you hide a 777.. Something isn't adding up.

After 48hrs there has to be a sign, crashed or not..

[v_tec]

Boeing 777
March 7
Flight MH 370

[nabs]

It's a large area of water as well, it could technically be anywhere because if it was hijacked, the hijackers could have turned the plane in any direction and nobody would know. This is getting and making me sadder and sadder by the hour, I really hope they find it soon for the sake of the family members.

I thought there was no way of turning off the radar on an airplane as a safety measure. And if it was a manual shut down, why wouldn't they have an emergency backup, or just one always running in a secret location in case of emergency. Has anyone thought of this? or am I just speaking out of my ass.

[CP.AR]

Radar is ground based. You can turn off the ident (the return data encoded signal) but you can't turn off the raw radar echo's. Not sure how the radar coverage is in that part of the world though
Posted via RS Mobile

[Bouncing Bettys]

Originally Posted by Manic!

They made a mavie about it called alive. Watch it it's really good.

The acting is shit. Of course the book of the same name is far better. The survivors had a camera with them and took a number of pictures during their ordeal, some of which were included in the book. Also included are maps of the crash site, the location of various sections of the plane, and the various expiditions to reach the other plane sections or routes to a way out of the mountains.

Striking the water at night likely means there weren't visual witnesses. A plane isn't going to leave much wreckage floating on the surface so it's like losing a needle in a gigantic haystack, especially if it altered its coarse from its assigned fligh path.

[EmperorIS]

UPDATE [6:59pm]: Vietnamese media reports that suspicious object is not related to flight MH370 reports. Jacky Ly Thang, a defense cooperation official in US Embassy Hanoi, told VN Search & Rescue Center just now that US search party has confirmed that the object - seen by Singaporean search plane earlier - had nothing to do with the missing plane.

[adambomb]

Five passengers booked on the flight did not board, he added. Their luggage was consequently removed.

I find this the oddest piece of the puzzle. Since the airline removed the luggage from the plane, it means the airport had the luggage in their possession, then those passengers technically should have checked in with gate staff. For the passengers to miss a flight, after all the boarding calls and final boarding calls broadcast over the airport public-address systems seems suspicious. I mean its one thing to completely miss a flight, people do it in Las Vegas all the time. But to show up to check in, check in luggage and miss the flight all together doesn't add up for me. I find it pretty hard to forget you have a flight to catch after you have already checked in. And this is for 5 people as reported, not just one drunk idiot.

[rsx]

Gets stranger by the minute

[Harvey Specter]

They're looking at 4 passengers who boarded the plane including two with the stolen passports...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Military radar indicates that the missing Boeing 777 jet may have turned back before vanishing, Malaysia's air force chief said Sunday as authorities were investigating up to four passengers with suspicious identifications.

The revelations add to the uncertainties surrounding the final minutes of flight MH370, which was carrying 239 people when it lost contact with ground controllers somewhere between Malaysia and Vietnam after leaving Kuala Lumpur early Saturday morning for Beijing.

A massive international sea search has so far turned up no trace of the plane, which lost contact with the ground when the weather was fine, the plane was already cruising and the pilots didn't send a distress signal — unusual circumstance for a modern jetliner operated by a professional airline to crash.

Vietnamese air force jets spotted two large oil slicks Saturday, but it was unclear if they were linked to the missing plane, and no debris was found nearby.

Air force chief Rodzali Daud didn't say which direction the plane veered when it apparently went off course, or how long it flew in that direction.

"We are trying to make sense of this," he told a media conference. "The military radar indicated that the aircraft may have made a turn back and in some parts, this was corroborated by civilian radar."

Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said pilots were supposed to inform the airline and traffic control authorities if the plane does a U-turn. "From what we have, there was no such distress signal or distress call per se, so we are equally puzzled," he said.

Authorities were checking on the suspect identities of at least two passengers who appear to have boarded with stolen passports. On Saturday, the foreign ministries in Italy and Austria said the names of two citizens listed on the flight's manifest matched the names on two passports reported stolen in Thailand.

Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that authorities were looking at two more possible cases of suspicious identities. He said Malaysian intelligence agencies were in contact with their international counterparts, including the FBI. He gave no more details.

"All the four names are with me and have been given to our intelligence agencies," he said. "We are looking at all possibilities."

The stolen passports, and the sudden disappearance of the plane that experts say is consistent with a possible onboard explosion, strengthened existing concerns about terrorism as a possible cause for the disappearance. Al-Qaida militants have used similar tactics to try and disguise their identities.

Despite that, other possible causes would seem just as likely at this stage, including a catastrophic failure of the engines or the plane itself, extreme turbulence and pilot error or even suicide. Establishing a cause with any certainty will need data from flight recorders and a detailed examination of any debris, something that will take months if not years.

European authorities on Saturday confirmed the names and nationalities of the two stolen passports: One was an Italian-issued document bearing the name Luigi Maraldi, the other Austrian under the name Christian Kozel.

A telephone operator on a China-based KLM hotline on Sunday confirmed "Maraldi" and "Kozel" were both booked to leave Beijing on a KLM flight to Amsterdam on March 8. Maraldi was then to fly to Copenhagen on KLM on March 8, and Kozel to Frankfurt on March 8.

She said the pair booked the tickets through China Southern Airlines so she had no information on where they bought them.

Having an onward reservation from Beijing would have meant the pair, as holders of EU passports, would not have needed a visa for China. Beyond that, it was unclear whether this had any possible implications for the investigation.

A total of 22 aircraft and 40 ships have been deployed to the area by Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, China and the United States, not counting Vietnam's fleet.

Two-thirds of the jet's passengers were Chinese. The rest were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.

After more than 30 hours without contact with the aircraft, Malaysia Airlines told family members they should "prepare themselves for the worst," Hugh Dunleavy, the commercial director for the airline told reporters.

Finding traces of an aircraft that disappears over sea can take days or longer, even with a sustained search effort. Depending on the circumstances of the crash, wreckage can be scattered over many square kilometers (miles). If the plane enters the water before breaking up, there can be relatively little debris.

A team of American experts was en route to Asia to be ready to assist in the investigation into the crash. The team includes accident investigators from National Transportation Safety Board, as well as technical experts from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing, the safety board said in a statement.

Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record, as does the 777, which had not had a fatal crash in its 19-year history until an Asiana Airlines plane crashed last July in San Francisco, killing three passengers, all Chinese teenagers.

Jason Middleton, the head of the Sydney-based University of New South Wales' School of Aviation, said terrorism or some other form of foul play seemed a likely explanation.

"You're looking at some highly unexpected thing, and the only ones people can think of are basically foul play, being either a bomb or some immediate incapacitating of the pilots by someone doing the wrong thing and that might lead to an airplane going straight into the ocean," Middleton said. "With two stolen passports (on board), you'd have to suspect that that's one of the likely options."

But Clive Williams, a counter-terrorism expert at Australia's Macquarie University and a former military intelligence officer, said he doubted the two stolen passports aboard the flight were related to the disaster. The latest Interpol data showed there were 39 million lost or stolen passports reported as of Dec. 2013.

"Any flight of that size in Asia would be carrying a couple of people with false passports," he said. "When you think about the number of passports that have been stolen or gone missing around the world ... it could be related, but it's probably not."

[Ulic Qel-Droma]

[StylinRed]

Originally Posted by adambomb

I find this the oddest piece of the puzzle. Since the airline removed the luggage from the plane, it means the airport had the luggage in their possession, then those passengers technically should have checked in with gate staff. For the passengers to miss a flight, after all the boarding calls and final boarding calls broadcast over the airport public-address systems seems suspicious. I mean its one thing to completely miss a flight, people do it in Las Vegas all the time. But to show up to check in, check in luggage and miss the flight all together doesn't add up for me. I find it pretty hard to forget you have a flight to catch after you have already checked in. And this is for 5 people as reported, not just one drunk idiot.

could just be a connecting flight, happens all the time

Originally Posted by Bouncing Bettys

The acting is shit. Of course the book of the same name is far better. The survivors had a camera with them and took a number of pictures during their ordeal, some of which were included in the book. Also included are maps of the crash site, the location of various sections of the plane, and the various expiditions to reach the other plane sections or routes to a way out of the mountains.

the acting wasn't bad at the time :/ some of the survivors worked as advisers for the film too iirc there was talk that the studios wanted them to act in the movie too

[adambomb]

Originally Posted by StylinRed

could just be a connecting flight, happens all the time

Good point. Didn't think of that.
The luggage made the connection but not the passengers. It could happen I guess.


The other thing that bothers me is the use of the stolen passports. Anybody who has ever been on a plane or watched the "Bourne Supremacy" knows a passport can get flagged. Every airport I have ever been in has scanned my passport via customs agents. How did these two passengers get on the plane with stolen passports? Where there any warnings that popped up when these passengers went through security with the stolen passports?

An aussie counter-terrorism expert basically said "fugettabouit"

[CP.AR]

Originally Posted by adambomb

I find this the oddest piece of the puzzle. Since the airline removed the luggage from the plane, it means the airport had the luggage in their possession, then those passengers technically should have checked in with gate staff. For the passengers to miss a flight, after all the boarding calls and final boarding calls broadcast over the airport public-address systems seems suspicious. I mean its one thing to completely miss a flight, people do it in Las Vegas all the time. But to show up to check in, check in luggage and miss the flight all together doesn't add up for me. I find it pretty hard to forget you have a flight to catch after you have already checked in. And this is for 5 people as reported, not just one drunk idiot.

This happens all the time man.
Posted via RS Mobile

[StylinRed]

^^^^
it was discussed earlier but if the flight was headed to the usa they're certain the stolen pp would have been flagged as all passports would have to be run through some US computer system

and

Originally Posted by StylinRed

cnn spoke to the former head of the FAA and she said its not uncommon to have stolen/fake passports on flights and listed various reasons why they typically see this especially in that part of the world

they also said catastrophic failures can happen in a split second without any prior warning on flight systems

basically telling armchair detectives to hold your horses and just wait


surprised no ones mentioned aliens or something sci fi related back in the day there were a lot of scifi films/books about flights disappearing

Originally Posted by Lord Disick

They're looking at 4 passengers who boarded the plane including two with the stolen passports...

'Suspect'
Malaysia's Transport Minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, initially said at least four names on the passenger list were "suspect" but later told the BBC there were in fact only two suspect names.

The BBC has confirmed that a man falsely using an Italian passport and a man falsely using an Austrian passport purchased tickets at the same time, and were both booked on the same onward flight from Beijing to Europe on Saturday.

Both had purchased their tickets from China Southern Airlines, which shared the flight with Malaysia Airlines, and they had consecutive ticket numbers.

They're looking on the West Coast too (malacca strait) it's sounding like it may have turned back due to failures maybe? coming back for an emergency landing?

The wing of this particular Boeing was damaged a couple years ago as it clipped another plane while on the ground and people are wondering if maybe the repair finally failed

what is evident at this point is there are allll sorts of possibilities that's why the authorities aren't laying any definite suspicions and keeping an open mind

but the public is going to latch onto what they find most interesting

[v_tec]

Originally Posted by adambomb

The other thing that bothers me is the use of the stolen passports. Anybody who has ever been on a plane or watched the "Bourne Supremacy" knows a passport can get flagged. Every airport I have ever been in has scanned my passport via customs agents. How did these two passengers get on the plane with stolen passports? Where there any warnings that popped up when these passengers went through security with the stolen passports?

You haven't been through enough airports.

[StylinRed]

The 2 with stolen passports had booked flights to Amsterdam and Beijing was just a stop

If that's where they were really headed i'm assuming drug smuggling/illegal immigrants

[v_tec]

Vietnamese Newspaper: http://www.thanhnien.com.vn/pages/20...-mat-tich.aspx
Looks like they something that resembles the window of a plane...

- They will send a ship out tonight (Vietnam time) to retrieve this object for further analysis
- They also found another object, suspected to be part of the tail of the aircraft
- Vietnamese authorities have informed Malaysian and Singaporean authorities about the findings.

[4444]

this all seems so odd to me:

1) how do people with stolen passports get through security - everything is online and connected now, right? so wouldn't they be flagged? this bit really bothers me (i'm flying to and around asia in a week, though i know by the numbers this is a one in a million thing)

2) if there was a mechanical or other fault, surely the pilots would have called it in, does that mean we can slightly discount mechanical failure? but why did they turn around, and if they turned around, why not radio it in?

3) if it is a hijacking - how? unless it's an inside job (that guy recently from Africa who landed in europe as he wanted asylum) - but the pilots are locked in their cabin, i'm pretty sure it's tough to bring weapons on board nowadays (even for skilled 'terrorists')

4) the only other thing i could think of it a mid air crash - but that's not an issue as the risks are so low for that and there would, of course, be a second plane involved.

this whole thing is such a wild and shocking mystery - in this connected world, how does this happen, why can't we find it - i assume we have the capability to view the earth in good definition, live, from space - how good is that technology? (Urthecast, for one) - i would think we should have some drones used at super high altitude with super high def. cameras to scan the areas to find evidence of where the plane came to land.

[4444]

couple other thoughts:

approx. 50% of crashes are human error - air france flight that went down between south america and france in the ocean, the recent SF crash... but nothing indicates that here, but we really don't know

if it were terrorism, does this make sense, to attack a muslim asset / people? I appreciate there are some super crazies out there who are parts of sects that beleive some muslims aren't pure enough b/c they're not as crazy as they are, but normally attacks in the name of religious extremism is done against 'the other side' - so it strikes me as odd, or maybe not, maybe this is a malaysian group of crackpots who want to show they have 'power' in malaysia?

so many questions

[v_tec]

Originally Posted by 4444

this all seems so odd to me:

1) how do people with stolen passports get through security - everything is online and connected now, right? so wouldn't they be flagged? this bit really bothers me (i'm flying to and around asia in a week, though i know by the numbers this is a one in a million thing)

One can travel from airport A (and use his real identity/passport) and transit through KUL for his flight to PEK without going through security again.
This could even have been a completely different ticket / itinerary.

Originally Posted by 4444

4) the only other thing i could think of it a mid air crash - but that's not an issue as the risks are so low for that and there would, of course, be a second plane involved.

Next to impossible given the modern age of radar and flight plans.
You're better off believing the 0.0000000001% chance of being hit by something like a meteorite.

[4444]

Originally Posted by v_tec

Next to impossible given the modern age of radar and flight plans.
You're better off believing the 0.0000000001% chance of being hit by something like a meteorite.

totally respect that, but there was an episode of maybe where in south america a private plane hit a jumbo, clipping its wing, the jumbo went down, i think the private jet was fine... (not sure when this was, 80's or early 90's? episode was a while ago

i agree, very very very unlikely, but then again, everything with flying is dealing such small chances - again, humans, they're the weakness in the system!

[v_tec]

Originally Posted by 4444

1) how do people with stolen passports get through security - everything is online and connected now, right? so wouldn't they be flagged? this bit really bothers me (i'm flying to and around asia in a week, though i know by the numbers this is a one in a million thing)

Originally Posted by v_tec

One can travel from airport A (and use his real identity/passport) and transit through KUL for his flight to PEK without going through security again.
This could even have been a completely different ticket / itinerary.

and no, it's not 'online and connected'. It really depends at which point you were checked. For example, airline check in counters cannot validate a passport, they just need to check if the passport match the name / DOB / if it has been forged and if it has applicable visa to the destination's country.

Interpol has data for stolen/lost passports. That data is accessed mostly on an individual query-by-query basis (by passport control authorities mainly) and it is far from commonly done to check all or even most passports of most passengers flying internationally.

Just think about YVR (and most CAN/USA airports) for example. At which point did you go through passport control? Not at departure...and only upon arrival.