Malaysian 777 enroute to Beijing missing!

[Dumb Pilot]

Could be....! If you take 10 min of taxi time for departure and 45-50 min of flight it will place it right on that area!

Will see I guess.

 

[madjack]

2 pax had stolen passports...

 

[slaquer5]

This is all extremely puzzling to me, the reports are that ATC and the company lost contact at roughly 2 hours into the flight, but the suspected area is about 400NM from Kuala Lumpur???? That's 40 minutes or so into the flight (specially with the prevailing winds that evening) in a 4:50 flight planned, 2 hours into it they would be NE of the Vietnam coast talking to Sanja and being handover to Hong Kong?????

They show the flight on flight tracker. How accurate would flight tracker be, in that part of the world ?

 

[jonjuan]

2 pax had stolen passports...

And.....????????

 

[NEDude]

CNN's Richard Quest was recently filming with Malaysian Airlines for CNN Business Travel and flew in the flight deck with the accident FO. He said he also believes, but it has not been confirmed, it was the same captain as well. Doubtful that it played a role in this accident but at the time of filming in the second half of February the FO was on OE after transitioning from another type.

 

[bigsky]

Does seem to be a strong case for some type of terrorism, and they are looking at the 2 stolen passports and who was really using them. It is hard to imagine a scenario wheee the plane could just vanish..no distress call, no acars messages etc..

 

[CesnaCaptn]

This is all extremely puzzling to me, the reports are that ATC and the company lost contact at roughly 2 hours into the flight, but the suspected area is about 400NM from Kuala Lumpur???? That's 40 minutes or so into the flight (specially with the prevailing winds that evening) in a 4:50 flight planned, 2 hours into it they would be NE of the Vietnam coast talking to Sanja and being handover to Hong Kong?????

I just read somewhere on the internet, so it must be true, that the press is screwing up the flight time. The plane crossed a time zone confusing people. The plane was actually only airborne for about an hour. That would corroborate your thoughts.

 

[J.Otto]

With such a large amount of Chinese onboard, maybe this attack is connected to the Muslim Uighur separatists who unleashed a deadly attack last week in the Yunnan region of China. This area happens to be along the flight path to Beijing and just left of course. 29 killed and 130 wounded... pretty high count for knife work! Its also been reported that the two stolen passports bought their tickets together from China Southern with contiguous ticket numbers.

 

[Dumb Pilot]

With such a large amount of Chinese onboard, maybe this attack is connected to the Muslim Uighur separatists who unleashed a deadly attack last week in the Yunnan region of China. This area happens to be along the flight path to Beijing and just left of course. 29 killed and 130 wounded... pretty high count for knife work! Its also been reported that the two stolen passports bought their tickets together from China Southern with contiguous ticket numbers.

I thought exactly the same thing, that the Chinese passengers were the targets here....., some reports on CNN about radar data suggesting that the A/C had reversed course and seem to be returning to KL???? This just adds to the mystery.....!

 

[Hobbes]

I don't think the plane reversed course, but it had turned at the last data point from 025 track to 040 track. Now, I need to see what route they filed, because this turn occurred over a fix - from Aviation-safety.net: "Data of flight tracking website Flightradar24 suggest that the flight flew a 25? course towards the IGARI waypoint. Overhead IGARI, at 02:20, the flight changed course to 40?. Last contact recorded by Flightradar24 was at 02:20 at 175 km NNE off the Malaysian coast and 223 km SW off the Vietnamese coast, approximately at the border of the Singapore and the Ho Chi Minh FIR."

The airways DO turn at that point, so the last radar track could have been mid-turn as they were intercepting M765. JUST speculation, but at least I am looking at a chart.

From Avherald.com : "According to the states run Chinese news agency Xinhua Chinese police established that one of the Chinese passengers listed on the manifest never left China, is still at home and in possession of his passport, therefore was not on the accident flight. The passenger's passport had not been lost or stolen, the numbers on his passport and the passport number noted on the manifest are identical however."

 

[DUBLINFLYER]

CNN showed the two tickets that were purchased at the same using the stolen passports, does not bode well

 

[ALGFLYR]

Surprised no terrorist group has claimed this event yet...

 

[SIG600]

CNN showed the two tickets that were purchased at the same using the stolen passports, does not bode well

Could be two political dissidents on the run together, family members escaping something. Doesn't mean anything at this point.

 

[Erlanger]

The tickets bought by the 2 fake passports had onward tickets to Amsterdam. What are the odds of two passengers with fake passport buying tickets routed from KL to Beijing and then onto to Amsterdam. By doing that the 2 passengers didn't need a visa to transit China.

 

[Erlanger]

Surprised no terrorist group has claimed this event yet...

Maybe they've let the Chinese government know they did it but not going public since they may be worried about backlash since it wasn't a Chinese airliner and know that the Chinese may not want to go public with it either for various reasons. It's being reported that security at Chinese airports in the past 24 hrs are at their highest which may not mean anything other then that's what naturally happens in a situation like this.

 

[Erlanger]

The latest from Reuters;

The United States extensively reviewed imagery taken by American spy satellites for evidence of a mid-air explosion, but saw none at all, an authoritative U.S. government source said. The source described U.S. satellite coverage of the region as thorough.

 

[PBRstreetgang]

Surprised no terrorist group has claimed this event yet...

We all saw how that worked out for Osama and his crew....

 

[Secret Squirrel]

This was an attack against China. They don't have the due process we have. A group might not take credit for this to stay under the radar.

 

[scoreboardII]

Due process? Ever hear of drones? Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think we use enough drones.

 

[DUBLINFLYER]

I listened to CNN's Richard Quest (supposed expert) and he contradicted himself during the broadcast, he showed the sequence with him in the cockpit with the FO while flying (how does Richard get permission to site in the cockpit during the flight) and he said he was an experienced FO, less that a minute later he called him an inexperienced FO. Richard needs a good does of realism and not trying to look pretty spouting off inaccuracy's about pilots and aircraft - just (English)drivel

 

[filejw]

I listened to CNN's Richard Quest (supposed expert) and he contradicted himself during the broadcast, he showed the sequence with him in the cockpit with the FO while flying (how does Richard get permission to site in the cockpit during the flight) and he said he was an experienced FO, less that a minute later he called him an inexperienced FO. Richard needs a good does of realism and not trying to look pretty spouting off inaccuracy's about pilots and aircraft - just (English)drivel

In the segment I watched he said the FO was experienced but new to the 777.

 

[scoreboardII]

Very shallow water over the gulf. Unlike the Air France accident. I remember something about a USAF jet going into the great salt lake, they new where it went and still took a long time to find it, buried itself in the sediment.

But, this is just weird its taking this long to ID a point.

 

[Erlanger]

This Malaysian flight was a codeshare with China Southern Air, China's largest airline. If this was a terrorist act, maybe the Iranian agent who bought the tickets thought that this was a China Southern flight.

 

[NEDude]

I listened to CNN's Richard Quest (supposed expert) and he contradicted himself during the broadcast, he showed the sequence with him in the cockpit with the FO while flying (how does Richard get permission to site in the cockpit during the flight) and he said he was an experienced FO, less that a minute later he called him an inexperienced FO. Richard needs a good does of realism and not trying to look pretty spouting off inaccuracy's about pilots and aircraft - just (English)drivel

To answer your question about how he got permission to sit in the flight deck - foreign carriers are not subject to the same policies and restrictions we have in the US. Buy an ID/ZED ticket on a foreign carrier and there is a possibility of riding in the flight deck if all the seats are full. They will even do it in and out of US cities. I watched a foreign carrier put two non-revs in the flight deck on a flight out of SFO to Europe just a few months ago. One of the non-revs was the child of a ramp worker, the other was a retired ticket agent. I have sat up front on a flight in Europe (a Blue1 717) and was offered the seat before they knew I was a pilot. So I do not think it is unusual that a member of the media would be granted permission by a foreign airline to ride in the flight deck for a news segment.

 

[sniper]

If this end up been a terrorist act, i hope the clowns in DC rethink about opening customs in that part of the world....



what can i say idiots total idiots that what I would have call them and I hopethe american public not just ALPA and pilots call the news stations and bitch about it.

what if this was a practice run

 

[blueridge71]

I was just wondering if the 777 has an automatic emergency descent mode.

New reports indicate that the plane flew 500 miles west and descended 1000 meters with the transponder off and no contact. That seems to generate two possibilities:

1. That the plane had a sudden decompression and the crew did not get their masks on in time or

2. That one of the crew members had the plane under control and flew it into the Strait of Malacca.

Any thoughts?

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/0...-off-course-from-last-point-of-radio-contact/

 

[skypine69]

I would think that having customs and immigration overseas would make things safer. More scrutiny BEFORE getting on the aircraft.

 

[BILL LUMBERG]

I was just wondering if the 777 has an automatic emergency descent mode.

New reports indicate that the plane flew 500 miles west and descended 1000 meters with the transponder off and no contact. That seems to generate two possibilities:

1. That the plane had a sudden decompression and the crew did not get their masks on in time or

2. That one of the crew members had the plane under control and flew it into the Strait of Malacca.

Any thoughts?


http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/0...-off-course-from-last-point-of-radio-contact/

I gotta kill theory number one....an explosive D doesn't shut the transponder off.

 

[redflyer65]

Looks more and more like air piracy. A turn off course while turning off the Transponder and ACARS and probably dropping to a low altitude. Be interesting to see what the range would be with FOB.

Someone knew exactly what they were doing.

 

[NEDude]

The information coming out of Malaysia is a mess. The head of the Air Force is reported saying it was on radar over the Strait of Malacca, then denies saying it. Then another unnamed source from the Air Force confirms the report while the civilian government says they have never been briefed on it. It is hard enough to find wreckage even if you know exactly where it went down. It will be virtually impossible if the Malaysians cannot even figure out whether the Air Force is telling the truth or not. I imagine the Chinese are getting pretty angry at the Malaysian government over the conflicting reports.

PS- Apparently the Vietnamese are fed up. They are now suspending their search until Malaysia provides clarity about what exactly they know. The Vietnamese Transport minister has asked Malaysia twice to provide clarity but the Malaysians are not responding. What a mess.