Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight - Hijacking...but...

[sp1814]

According to the latest reports, investigators are theorising that the airline was hijacked, and flew for another seven hours after communications were disabled.*

Okay, if that's the case, surely someone out of all the plane's passengers could have called or texted someone at home?

(*I assume by 'communications' they mean the plane's communications lines).

Thoughts?

[237SJ]

If these 300 people were alive someqhere remote, the passenger cabin stowed emergency locator beacons would have been activated (they are more powerful than the beacons that are stowed with the black boxes)

[factor-fiction]

The search area is enormous. If it flew 1000 miles but the direction is unknown that potentially gives us a circle of area 3.1 million square miles. Some reports say it may have gone even further. Some directions could be ruled out but even if the search area can be slashed by three quarters it still leaves a huge area, most of which is deep sea

[Gromit]

Jno
That is too horrible a scenario to comprehend...

After all they have been through already, to be subjected to Davina McCall and Ant and Dec !!!

[anneasquith]

sigh.............

[jomifl]

Mikey, the trip to Beijing is 2500 miles, the cruising speed is 600 mph, so it is a 4 hour trip, it had enough contingency fuel for an extra half our so would have run out of fuel at 6AM. The pinger which is powered from the planes electrical system was still operating at 8AM. This indicates that the plane was intact and had spent at least 2 hours on the ground at some time. It could have taken of again and then crashed of course.

[jno]

anneasquith, it was in response to Khandro's post, itself a comment on some of the wilder theories out there; but please feel free to report it if you're unhappy with it.

[anneasquith]

jno.. I don't do ' reporting ' just my opinion.

[mikey4444]

I am not prepared to believe that this aircraft landed and then took off again.

Its been hijacked and then crashed into the seas somewhere. There is no real alternative to this theory. Why isn't really important...mad people do stupid and unexplainable things all the time.

The wreckage will eventually be found, maybe in 10,000's of feet of salt water. Its just a matter of time.

[237SJ]

I think it`s under the sea somewhere. It`s not unknown for crewmembers to have a "Stop the world, I want to get off" moment and use their aircraft to that end.

[jomifl]

Ah well that proves it...

[sandyRoe]

Or in the forests of Vietnam.

[jomifl]

Sandy, if you look at Graham's link you will see that vietnam and cambodia are well covered by ground based radar. A plane flying low enough to go under the radar would have been heard d by people on the ground.

[237SJ]

I`m not sure that those people on pprune know what they are talking about. They are talking about water activated ELTs which are attached to the life rafts on some B777s. They have been phased out on some airlines. They also make reference to 2 ELTs which are in the cabin of the B777 and they are incorrect - they are not water activated. They have to be physically switched on and they broadcast on the distress frequency with a range of (usually 80 miles) with a battery life of 48 hours. They are more powerful than the beacons which are attached to the black boxes. If nobody survives a crash, the cabin ELTs will not be activated.

[237SJ]

Sorry I should say transmit - broadcast isn`t the correct word.

[anneasquith]

via sky news. an American intelligence officer states, '' there is something going on with the pilot' ?

[237SJ]

I wonder how long it took him to figure that one out?

[237SJ]

The trouble with a situation like this is that there is no one expert who knows everything. There are people who know how to fly a plane, people who are experts on communications, engineers who know the workings of a B777, terrorism experts and the rest and they can only try to put a picture together of what happened within their field of knowledge. Until/if wreckage is found, nobody is really going to know what happened.

[sp1814]

If the pilot took control of the plane, and then deliberately flew it off course, wouldn't the co-pilot have to be in on it as well...and the navigator?