A Simple Explanation

Why do you have improper spaces before and after the apostrophes in "Boeing ' s" and "pilot ' s"?

--Ed. C.

Have you ever tried to write in English on a Spanish keyboard?

That's really, really weird.

big problem, they said goodnight and then this fire broke out???

Even if they noticed something was going wrong just a second after the copilot radioed that message, his first duty was to keep the plane flying instead of sending a distress call. Only the flight recorders (if found) may shed some light about the timeline

Another good explanation of what MAY have happened:

A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines

Notice the size and location of the alternate airport.

a lot of that fits but not entirely for me, interesting theory on the wheel well. I certainly don't know but the last Acars just after 1AM should have sent a heat or smoke flag but there was none. so I agree with two points here, First CNN is doing a dis-service with all the talking heads guessing away and condemning an 18000+ hour pilot. Second, until we get hard evidence we'll never really know anything beyond speculation.

I also think the 45K is bogus, this is a fantastic craft but a dive from 45 to the low 20's in itself would have this plane coming unglued.I wont bother with my theories on this thread, I cant get away from the 2 people with false passports yet.

It's plausible, that's all I'm saying.

I'm satisfied the false passports had nothing to do with this. Those guys were both cleared, for my money.

And mine. Early on it was said that the chance of a passenger having a false passport was one in (think of a big number) so the chance of 2 was one in the number². But that doesn't follow, somebody with a dodgy passport might well have a friend in the same position, and they might both travel together, so the events are not independent.

Also if they were planning hanky-panky, they'd be better with genuine passports, as less likely to be stopped at airport security.

It is also possible that we're both correct. An attempted hijacking led to the two course corrections but a sudden decompression (gun shot, outer door opening) led to a four hour ghost plane flight across the Indian Ocean.

Then again...

We just do not have enough information to draw a definative conclussion.

This is almost like a "Schrodinger's cat" experiment........ where everyone is right, and every one is wrong..... at the same time.

Mythbusters took an old (desert near Phoenix) stored plane fuselage, pressurised it to a normal operating height and used a gun to shoot holes in it. Basically little happened....

Eventually, for the TV program, they had to used "shaped" explosive charges to blow big enough holes to make things really happen, but the conclusion was (last minute of video) that bullets did almost nothing, but big shaped charges did, but the aircraft could have remained in the air.....this was an old, tired fuselage, probably significantly weaker than a modern one....

That explosion did not happen unless the customs somehow allowed a BIG bomb onboard!!!

You need to watch the whole video as they do not show here the effect of bullets as it was too boring and ineffective, but they are discussed. See here:-

Mythbusters - Aircaft Presurization and Guns

I follow your thinking, could be on the button for my money.

But if they were possible Hijackers, and if they were "known", they could not have "genuine passports" with their "real" identities in them, as they would have been arrested on the spot!!!

So they would have to be "false" in some manner.

There will always be countries where "original" passports will be available for money......(I think the word "original" says it better!).

The ones in question here were stolen and were of Chinese origin, the bearers were obviously NOT of Chinese origin (one has been identified as an Arab), the Malaysian Customs have a lot to answer for to my mind.......originally they were issued for a Christian Kozel, an Austrian, and Luigi Maraldi, an Italian........now I wonder if those two could even speak German or Italian???? Simple check???

Chinese passports, arab (Iranian) looking, a 5 minute language check?????

See here:-

Stolen passports on Malaysia flight used before, Chinese firm says!

Modern UK passports I believe have certain digital infos that makes them far more difficult to falsify (impossible?). Other countries are following suit.....The more that other countries do the same, the more that hijackers will be forced to use passports from a country that does not have this data in them.......

I hope that this post brings a few more ideas to shut further doors before the horse has escaped, the next time!! Too late here, but good for training.

Agree Fredski: temporally the copilot saying "goodnight" after the first transponder was already shut down can't be ignored. The act (on purpose or failure) of turning this off would produce CAS (crew alert system) alerts. So if there were cascading failures, he would have said something.

More of an enigma to me is that the transponder kept "chirping", as FAA regulations require that the pilot can pull the power breaker from any subsystem, and expect that they pulled the power from that system. There is some design error here, as the chirping should never have happened. So there was some unintended power connection and I bet it never got tested as the chirping was hourly.

I'm still waiting for the sea foam, sea grass, and garbage flotsam reports to find anything from the aircraft. I'm believing it's going to be a long time before they find it on the sea floor. Until then, it's all speculation.

"FAA regulations require that the pilot can pull the power breaker from any subsystem, and expect that they pulled the power from that system. There is some design error here, as the chirping should never have happened."

The purpose of the 'chirp' is to allow locating the black box after the plane loses power. Having the ability to disable the chirp from the cockpit by pulling a breaker defeats the whole purpose of the black box transponder.

This is similar to something I'm dealing with in the plant, as the purpose of an E-stop is to completely de-energize a machine, removing all power from the system. Some machines, however, are designed where they require energy to hold dangerous parts at bay, and sudden loss of power could prove damaging to the machine, or fatal to operators. Power cutoffs and safeties are in direct conflict.

The transponder would logically use its own internal (low voltage) power if it were cut off from the plane's main power source, either from the breaker being pulled, or the power source shutting down, or the plane failing to maintain its existence as a single entity. (trying to be politic with that last item, the 'plain speech version' might still be too upsetting for some)

The 'chirp' I was referring to was from the ACARS system, which was supposedly turned off. I think your referring to the flight data recorder underwater locater ping signal. The other system is the transponder, which is quarried by ground RADAR, and I believe this aircraft only has the MODE-S version (this reports back the squawk number and altitude only). This is so ground based RADAR can show the aircraft assigned number, with an altitude for ground based collision avoidance. The ADS-B version of the transponder most likely was not installed yet (as the FAA and other regulatory agencies have this required by Jan 1 2020). This system allows the ground based facilities to access other data from several systems (e.g. attitude, airdata, flight management), to not only have a ground based collision avoidance, but to be able to accurately predict when the aircraft will arrived at it's intended airport. The idea of this is to schedule their location in the approach que. This will allow much higher airspace traffic density.

I talked to my commercial pilot friend, who talked to his transport pilot friend. The off circuit breaker switch for the ACARS that will shut it down along with the engine data is located in the avionics bay. As the location for this is considered outside the cabin/cockpit, smoke emitted from electrical components is not within the cabin. At least this explains to me why the pilots could not shut this off. There may be an access door to this avionics bay from the cockpit, he was not sure.

From what I understand as a civilian reading about this tragedy from half a world away, the only information being transmitted via ACARS was info about the jet's engines. If the engines were the only thing being monitored and reported, the conditions inside the cabin would not be available. How often does a jet engine need to know the cabin conditions in order for it to operate properly?

Does anyone here know if this jet utilized ACARS for anything other than engine status reports?

you're mixing information

Perhaps my information is incomplete. The only mention of ACARS I have seen in any of the news reports is when the reporter says something like "Rolls-Royce received ACARS status reports from its engines for many hours after the last communication."

Was more data other than engine status being reported?

ACARS is used to send information from the aircraft to ground stations about the conditions of various aircraft systems and sensors in real-time. Maintenance faults and abnormal events are also transmitted to ground stations along with detailed messages, which are used by the airline for monitoring equipment health

Well, unless my pilot friend spoke with the author of this article, both say more or less the same!

Brilliant!

I like that article. It squares with what other veteran airline pilots are suggesting. (Every one acknowledges that they're speculating.) The only thing that struck me as a little suspicious with the scenario is that the pilots might not use Oxygen in the case of a fire. That doesn't make sense at all: you're not going to stop the fire and save the plane if you can't breathe. O2 is an unavoidable risk.

"Aviate, navigate, communicate," in priority order.

I still won't be surprised if this thing pops up on the radar coming out of one of the middle east countries or the Australian outback loaded to blow at the next place it lands.

Too much of what does add up so far still smells like an attempted/successful hijacking to me and an overall large scale cover up to keep from having to admit it.

So far it proved that a large aircraft can fly thousands of miles without being tracked on any typical radar which sort of scares the crap out of me being that fully loaded with common diesel or kerosene for fuel and a few extra tanks in the belly to extend range that aircraft could still fly nearly halfway around the world without raising suspicions and deliver who knows what to where once.

There is absolutely no reason to have radar coverage in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Now, if they allowed people to use cell phones on commercial aircraft, the NSA would have know exactly where that plane was at all times. Getting them to admit that they knew would take 3 years and many court orders.

I'm absolutely sure that an aircraft of that size could never fly into the middle east, or Australia, without being tracked by radar.

It's on the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

it was certainly on several radars...........ya think these countries are going to to just disclose their capabilities and vulnerabilities? its easier for them to just be helpful and use satellite images to point you to floating trash piles

I agree with you: many countries in that area have unsolved disputes over territorial waters, meaning that there may be much more tracking information about this flight than disclosed.

There would have to be some extra equipment to handle the mobiles/cellphones and retransmit the conversations on another type of radio link, technically possible I am sure, but who would pay for that?

Cellphones need towers every few miles or so.....

ACARS fully working and a requirement for all flights, plus making it impossible to switch it off in flight (Change of FAA rules?), might be enough. Add the IFF Transponder in as well......who knows?

Certainly something needs to be done in such circumstances....

Andy this case will spawn changes in the airline industry. I think its far too early to say what those changes will be but when it happens they will never be left scratching their heads again wondering where they lost a 100+ ton aircraft. they'll know at all times where to find one

Your word in God's ear.......

I agree with your pilot friend for a few critical reasons that they have a very good, working hypothesis about this doomed airplane. First, the proposed scenario fits the sparse amount of information we do know about this doomed flight. It requires the least amount of assumptions (noxious/poisonous fumes) to meet these assumptions. I would proffer just one added assumption. Whatever the toxic gas (carbon monoxide?) that killed everyone while airborne, the symptoms resemble simple hypoxia. Regardless of who was last at the helm, they commanded the autopilot to descend to a breathable altitude in the hope that somebody would regain consciousness. Instead, they all fell to the same fate that Payne Stewart did in 1999 but over open Indian Ocean waters/

Many articles in the British press, about friends of the Pilot, who are stating that he was not in his right mind, and shouldn't have been flying.. He had an affair, and had been having problems with his wife, who had threatened to divorce him , a very big no-no with his Religious community. His main focus was on friends, and family, and he had violated his Marital obligations…and, apparently, had been discovered, and was facing a very traumatic family event, the divorce, and a public / friends humiliation, especially with his only child, a daughter, that he worshipped. Google it and see…Am not where I can forward the link, but will look….

Amid increasing suspicion, son of Malaysia Airlines pilot comes t
Daughter?

Is this the same pilot?

We had a similar scenario here in Buenos Aires about 10 years ago with a LAPA flight. A stressesd pilot intended to take off a 737 without extending flaps, he also ignored all warning alarms. Plane ended in a gas (petrol) station at the end of the runway. Half of the passengers made it.

I cant support or disprove your claim. I'm as fascinated with this mystery as the next person but when the final report is in(possibly years from now) I'd be shocked if a guy with 18000+ hours will be hung with responsibility here regardless of his religious faith or strength of his marriage.

Sounds reasonable to me... but will this happen before or after the allien invasion?

in conjunction with

Who dumbed you down??

Or, is it just a birth defect.

LOL!!!

I have given that version here and a more dirty sub-version, that of shooting it down after confirmed unresponsive due to the original "incident". But what the h*ck was that incident? That is the most important thing to know and I'm afraid that the truth on this is not something we will see and relevant data will be manipulated, or conveniently found incomplete. Way too much "coincidence" to buy already. S.M.

Planes are loaded with floatation devices and if it hit the water, it broke up. Where is all the floating debris?

I'm inclined to run with carbon monoxide poisoning (CO). But Refred at 20 got in first.

CO (and other toxic contaminants) in the pressurised cabin air fed from the engines is thought to be a known risk by pilots. The subject is well reported, well researched, and well denied by aeroplane companies.

If CO poisoning was the case, crew and passengers would not know (unless they had a carbon monoxide alarm) and would become drowsy and just fall asleep (as is normal on a long-haul flight) eventually to die if contamination was continuously coming from the engines.

The latter would explain why there was no response from passengers using cell phones during the whole flight time - all asleep or dead.

Maybe there just time for the pilot(s) to take action to set the auto-pilot and change course (but odd that they did not notify anybody about it) or in their drowsy befuddled state unwittingly entered the 'wrong' number in the auto-pilot (and switching off beacons?) - totally unaware that something was wrong - and then sat back and fell asleep with nothing much to do for the next few hours.

My views on this are likely to be buried. Aeroplane companies would not want poisonous cabin air to be the explanation for the disaster.

complete BS. you are correct that mild levels of CO2 will cause drowsiness and headaches...and eventual death. so why didn't the pilots rely on their training and put on their O2 masks. the transmission of "Goodnight". was not muffled as it would be if he had a mask on. he was quite awake at that time with no panic or stress detected in his voice.

I don't know what "complete BS" means, but I prefix it to your post and return it to you in the same spirit.

The pilots knew nothing of their pending doom. CO poisoning, totally undetectable by the person, creeps up on you. They had no reason to think anything was wrong. They had no reason to do anything other than respond to routine procedure. Which by habit could almost be automatic without thought.

But the loss of faculties brought on by CO poisoning led them to making mistakes they were were totally unaware of - while they were still conscious that is - after that it was too late.

believe what makes you comfortable but you have no evidence to support your theory . the only evidence we currently have is a clear voice saying "good night", and a course change that was unplanned.

Don't forget that the pilots turned off the Transponder BEFORE saying everything was OK...

To me personally, that is a) an important fact and b) tends NOT to suggest that they were almost asleep....

But we are all guessing.

Also, I am fully prepared to be wrong and to apologise if necessary......

no, but they could have been confused........ even not realizing what they were doing....

HMMM, I don´t buy your theory

Cell phones don't work at 40,000 feet, even over land.

There are no cell phone towers in the Indian Ocean.

If the pilots changed course because of CO2 why didn't they use their O2 masks? Pilots have a much larger O2 supply than passengers.

Nope!

a little more info on cell phone tower rangehttp://smallbusiness.chron.com/far-can-cell-tower-cellphone-pick-up-signal-32124.html

Cellphones inside big metal boxes, tend to have a dramatically reduced range. But enough to work overland probably as 9/11 proved......

Plus the fact that there are no towers set in the oceans........not yet anyway.....

in this overly discussed mystery the cell aspect doesn't even make my list of important factors. when the final report comes out I doubt it will be included in the report. its a great mystery thats held my fascination and I look forward to its conclusion

It did not and could not change anything once the plane was not over land anymore....

The pilots did not change course in the sense that it was a deliberate act. They behaved as though everything was normal. They would not have used their O2 masks.

However, if they were affected by CO (not CO2) but without being aware of it, they programmed their planned course. But by accident used the wrong numbers by mistake.

It is easily done. I sit up in bed at night doing crosswords. Usually I fill in clues half asleep. In the morning when wide awake I find some words are completely wrong. But they were definitely 'correct' the night before.

My knowledge of flying is near zero so I have no idea about programming auto-pilots and such. Perhaps it is impossible to make typing errors. But even if I have no grounds on which to base my theories, the fact that the plane has not been found yet, means the experts haven't come up with an answer either.

And since contaminated cabin air is a known risk. This theory is as good as any other at the moment.

But I don't want anyone to buy it. It's given free.

Carbon Monoxide will do this........ you would be unaware that you are being suffocated.

with symptoms being Confusion and drowsiness.

And that is why CO is very dangerous.

Even though this is just theory, it is possible. But what would be the source of the CO would help support this theory.

Cabin air comes from a bleed stage off the jet engines.

There are numerous references. This link is as good as any.

<http://aerotoxic.org/aerotoxic-association/>

No specific reference is made to CO in link but CO comes from the same lube oil as the other contaminants when they partially 'burn' in the hot compressed air.

I would expect CO to be accompanied by smoke that would be easy to detect. Except the recent introduction of carbon filters to clean the cabin air to remove smoke fumes, particulates and smell etc, would if 'new' (just serviced) allow CO to pass unnoticed until filters saturate. Which could be long enough to cause problems.

then imo, it's just as possible as any other possibilities set forth..........

the one thing that is common with this and other possibilities is that we are no farther ahead of what actually happened.

I have to disagree with Fredski, succumbing to CO effects different people in different ways. And as far as training, training and procedures such as redundancy only increases the chances of correcting a problem, it does not eliminate it.

And by redundancy, I'm addressing that if the pilot becomes confused, that the co-pilot recognizes it and takes over.......... That is how its supposed to happen, but is not guaranteed.

Surely there are CO detectors on 777's.

I wonder if this tangent the thread has gone off on is blaming the correct gas? are we talking CO2 or carbon monoxide?

Carbon monoxide (CO) is the dangerous byproduct of combustion and is what causes you to get a headache, confusion, pass out and die without detecting it (odorless, tasteless, invisible - thus the CO detector was invented ;).

Why?

And stop calling me Shirley.

Can anyone in this forum fly this plane ;)???

True!

True!

True!

and

True!!

Is this yet another missing plane thread? Aren't there enough of these already?

I think its in your backyard

Is this yet another missing plane thread? yeah, but this is the good one!

Of course, I'm not an expert but this expalanation does not make much sense. I believe that -for sure- there would be enough time for the pilots (and even passengers) to put on their oxygen masks. And the pilots should be able (at least) to tranmit an SOS signal. The most weird thing is the absolute silence, although something was definetely wrong. The only case were there would be no time for an urgent communication with the control tower should be a sudden big explosion (resulting in a total desrtuction of the plane). But, of course, this is not an explanation in this case, as the airplane was flying for several hours after the change of its route. I, also, don't believe the explanation that the pilot may commited suicide. (Afterall, if so, he could do it all alone and not to kill all the passengers too.)

The other weird thing is that the rescue forces were searching in so many places, so far away from the area that the plane actually crashed (although, it seems that they may knew this area from the very begining). Why so? Probably, because they didn't really want to find the plane. Why? Maybe, because they had something to hide. (I think that the "hijacking scenario" is never out of the table. Just think that there was a USA base, on an island nearby.)

In the lack of concrete evidence, the press, the local government and the airline continue feeding suspicions on the pilots, so they to have somebodies head on the pillory. As these guys happened to be Muslims (extra bonus for being guilty), they count on a much stronger hypothesis. Following this weird lead: what shall be done with hundreds of Muslim pilots working for Qatar, Emirates, Malaysian, Qantas, etc: will they ground them all, just in case??? As to what happened to this flight: I strongly believe that a while after departure things went terribly wrong and the pilots were overwhelmed by the situation. The most complex situations arise when the weakest link of the chain gets broken.

The big objection to all these theories about trying to head for the nearest airport and being overcome is the apparent multiple changes of course, ending up (if the reports are to be believed) flying more-or-less due south.

I'll add to a conspiracy theory here... but, one wonders the consequences to Boeing or Malaysian airlines, if they were to find the pane and recover the black box.

I think the fore mentioned hope the plane is never found

Just putting this out there considering how this whole thing was handled.

Although I haven't been following this story all that closely because the "news" always seems to be more like the same "old" story repeatedly, from this discussion, I learned about the co-pilot saying "good night" to the pilot. This could have been the point at which a passenger burst into the cockpit and bad things followed. I believe that the cockpit is locked at all times (at least with U.S. based airlines), except when the crew changes seats for rest periods on long flights. What I don't know is at what point did the sudden change in direction and altitude occur? If it was subsequent and shortly after the "good night", then a hijacking is likely, IMHO. The hijacker could have then simply cut off oxygen to the passengers after gaining control of the jet. Sudden decompression would have also killed everyone and allowed the jet to continue on auto-pilot until running out of fuel, like the Payne Stewart tragedy. We may never know what really happened, but I hate to see the likely deceased's lives dragged publicly through the mud unless and until there is certainty of their wrong-doing.

just a note.....in the history of disaster investigation the root cause rarely is a single mistake, part, line of code etc.but its more common for a chain of events that all come together for a failure of a building, bridge, plane, rocket launch etc.

it might take years to find the data recorders. until debris starts washing up on some distant shore we really have no clue what happened that night. a pile of old fishing nets and other ocean trash are not leads.

The life of a black box data recorder in the sea at the depth that they've been searching is only like 1-2 years I believe.

An aside - I realize "black boxes" are not black, but surely it wouldn't make them unreasonably big if they were built with a low enough density to float? Couln't they be housed somewhere very likely to rupture in the event of ditching, and float free? They'd be a helluva lot easier to find!

There may be an obvious reason, but I can't think of it.

as soon all planes crash into water I'm sure they'll switch to your method.

Would there be any disadvantage to "my method" if a plane so equipped crashed on land?

Then the box wouldn't float.

But hey, the make cement ships, don't they?

If it's on land, why does it matter whether or not it would float? Surrounding it with a layer of some low-density material could also help prevent impact damage, and provide thermal insulation to help withstand fire damage (if necessary). Looks like win-win to me.

Don't forget, all of the seat cushions are flotation devices. They've yet to find one single seat cushion.

They're not hi-vis, with built-in radio beacons (and/or hi-brightness flashing LEDs)

It's also a big ocean....

True, but there'd be a damned sight better chance of finding it floating, with RF & visible beacons, than 2 miles down with a short-range underwater squeaker (may be wrong, but pretty sure I heard that they had to be within about 4 miles to pick up the acoustic signal).

As it has a radio beacon anywy, it would be easier to find on the surface, no?

What if they put automatic ejector seats with parachutes for all of the passengers. Then they wouldn't need any color boxes with any crash. They could also save us on landing fees by just ejecting people without landing. Speaking of money, they should only charge 5¢.

I don't really think that's much of an argument against my proposal. Do you?

I'm coming round to the "let's stream the data in real time" to some land based "thing", via satellite when needed.

Not that that can prevent the crash/hijacking/mid air collision/goose strike/flame out/psycho-maniac pilot from crashing the plane.

I intentionally left out "stupidity". Anybody with an ATP ticket isn't stupid. (Airline transport pilot)

Sounds like a good scheme - but maybe keep (a version of) the black box as well - belt & braces, and all that.

(for clarity, if you read the posts, what I was suggesting boils down to a bit of hi-tech bubble-wrap and a couple of ultrabright LEDs fitted to ONE black box per aircraft - not too expensive, eh?).

Biggest impediment to any of these good ideas is regulatory inertia.