Malaysia airlines plane may have crashed 239 people on board #7

[Steely Dan]

I do too, but I must ask, what year was this taken? (Sorry, Dad lived on destroyers for years, so I ask.)

ScarlettScarpetta, in the last thread, wanted to know which ship (carrier) this is

I looked up the USS Kidd and USS Pinckney, they are destroyer class,

I must be the carrier that has the Poseidon and Orion air craft on it or it belongs to another country

^^^She answered that for you.

 

[ElleElle]

 

[Morag]

IIRC the ACARS outside the cockpit was disabled 5 hours after the one in the cockpit.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/index.html

The new satellite information, Najib said, leads authorities to be fairly certain that someone disabled the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, or ACARS, just before the aircraft reached the east coast of peninsular Malaysia.
"Shortly afterward, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control," Najib said, "the aircraft's transponder was switched off."
ACARS is the system that routinely transmits information like turbulence and fuel load back to the airline and the transponder is a radio transmitter in the cockpit used to communicate with air traffic controllers.
The last voice communication from the cockpit a week ago were these words: "All right, good night."
They were uttered at the Vietnam air traffic control border, after ACARS and the transponder were shut off, Razak said. That suggests the incident on the plane began sooner than initially thought.

 

[Leilei]

NEW DAILY MAIL ARTICLE

Police are investigating the possibility that the pilot of missing Flight MH370 hijacked his own aircraft in a bizarre political protest.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was an ‘obsessive’ supporter of Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. And hours before the doomed flight left Kuala Lumpur it is understood 53-year-old Shah attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim was jailed for five years.

Campaigners say the politician, the key challenger to Malaysia’s ruling party, was the victim of a long-running smear campaign and had faced trumped-up charges.

Police sources have confirmed that Shah was a vocal political activist – and fear that the court decision left him profoundly upset.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...opposition-leader-sodomite.html#ixzz2w4j4YV00

NEW DAILY MIRROR ARTICLE

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a fervent supporter of his country's opposition leader who was jailed for homosexuality - illegal in Malaysia - only hours before flight MH370 vanished with 239 passengers and crew on board, the Sunday Mirror can reveal.

And in a new twist, it emerged that the pilot's wife and three children moved out of the family's home the day before the plane's disappearance.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/missing-malaysian-airlines-fears-over-3247649#ixzz2w4jQtge8

I find it interesting the pilot's wife and children moved out the day before this happened it seems the pilot may have been suffering a personal crisis.

Wow, that's pretty big news. Maybe this is why the Malaysian PM won't call this "hijacking", per se. Stress leading to a psychotic break, maybe, with him just flying off into the wild blue yonder... taking 238 people with him?

Just pondering. The more that comes out, the more confused I get. I've never waffled so much on a case here, seriously.

 

[Wolf Dreamer]

I hope I am not asking a redundant question and not quite sure how to word it....if we know from what they have told us about how much fuel the plane had....do we know if there is/was a reserve tank on that plane? If so, and the "hijackers" or whatever knew the amount needed to fly to the planes destination, how would the hijacker know if there is/was any reserve on board? TIA to anyone that might can answer.

And how would a highjacker know the amount in a reserve tank.

I read elsewhere (on a forum) MH370 had taken on more fuel than was strictly necessary to get to Beijing - apparently not uncommon due to aviation fuel being subsidised in Malaysia, thus cutting the costs of refueling for the return flight.

BTW if you google "boeing 777 manual" you will get a surprising amount of info.... like the Delta 777-200 flight manual for 2014, complete with how to calculate fuel etc...

 

[popsicle]

IIRC the ACARS outside the cockpit was disabled 5 hours after the one in the cockpit.

ACARS and then transponer.

Retweeted by H2O Comms
Mohd Najib Tun Razak ‏@NajibRazak 16h
Based on new satellite info,we can say w/ a high degree of certainty tt d Aircraft Communications Addressing&Reporting System(ACARS)..-Admin

... was disabled just before the aircraft reached the East coast of peninsular Malaysia. -Admin

Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft’s transponder was switched off.-Admin

From this point onwards, the Royal Malaysian Air Force primary radar showed that an aircraft which was believed... -Admin

t then flew in a westerly direction back over peninsular Malaysia before turning northwest. -Admin

https://twitter.com/H2OComms

 

[lawstudent]

I don't know a lot about Malaysia's political situation, but I feel like the tendency is for the media to focus on the radicals of any group. The pilot could have been a supporter of one of the opposition parties without being a fanatic - it wouldn't surprise me if this was some sort of political statement, but I do feel like we need much more info on that. He was still working, so he probably wasn't going out protesting violently, because in Malaysia, I'd imagine they lock up dissenters up reasonably quickly. I'm just saying we should be cautious, because wanting political change and committing murder-suicide or hijacking are two very different things.

 

[squeaky]

This story has been messing with my sleep all week. I can't sleep right and I've had dreams involving crashing and missing airplanes. During the PM's press conference last night I could feel my pulse skyrocketing and started to feel nauseous as his words approached the inevitable. Went to see the Lego Movie as a distraction today (luckily I saw Non-Stop before all this nonsense started unfolding).

Hard to go against the pilot-hijacker theory at this point. If the altitude changes are accurate, it would sadly seem that he may have killed everybody on board. If this were indeed a bizarre political statement of sorts, I find it strange that there is no actual "message" to go along with the tragedy that has captivated the world for the past week.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

So if this ping (in the yellow box) was at 8:11am, we know that it was still flying at around normal flight level at that time, some 7 hours later. You would think if it WAS suicide he would have done it over the sea, much earlier.

Lends more weight to it being flown and landed somewhere perhaps?

 

[Prosecution_Rests]

I don't know a lot about Malaysia's political situation, but I feel like the tendency is for the media to focus on the radicals of any group. The pilot could have been a supporter of one of the opposition parties without being a fanatic - it wouldn't surprise me if this was some sort of political statement, but I do feel like we need much more info on that. He was still working, so he probably wasn't going out protesting violently, because in Malaysia, I'd imagine they lock up dissenters up reasonably quickly. I'm just saying we should be cautious, because wanting political change and committing murder-suicide or hijacking are two very different things.

There are enough aspects to this pilots skill that makes him a suspect, so much so that they really don't need to talk about his activism at all.

I'd still like to know if there was a social connection between pilot and co. That would give us a good idea of possible collusion.

 

[AlwaysShocked]

Richard Quest on CNN: "a case where a pilot has gone awry" What an understatement! I love Richard, who apparently never sleeps. He covers Royal weddings and missing airliners with equal aplomb. (I realize he had interviewed and perhaps filmed the co-pilot for a feature story he was doing about a month or so ago.)

 

[popsicle]

You go thru a hatch in the cockpit to shut-off ACARS correct?

 

[Leilei]

Re the wife and children - weren't his 3 children grown? He has grandchildren - were they all living together in one house? I have read that he lived in a gated community but I haven't read who lived there.

Editing to add:


On Saturday, a police van with a large contingent of officers inside passed through a security gate at the entrance to the luxury compound where Shah, a father-of-three, lives with his wife Faisa.

http://m.smh.com.au/world/terror-in...-pilot-zaharie-ahmad-shah-20140315-34u3n.html

I am reluctant to believe the information about his family leaving him unless a more reputable source confirms it. I take everything from the DM with a bucket of salt.

Not unusual for Asian families to live together with their adult children. My step-mom is Filipina, she and my dad live with my step-brother, and my nephew still lives with my sister and her husband. They keep asking my husband and I to move in with them Culture thing, pretty neat, actually.

 

[Snoods]

Are these not live satt images?

They're supposed to be, or at least within a day or two.

 

[popsicle]

Richard Quest on CNN: "a case where a pilot has gone awry" What an understatement! I love Richard, who apparently never sleeps. He covers Royal weddings and missing airliners with equal aplomb. (I realize he had interviewed and perhaps filmed the co-pilot for a feature story he was doing about a month or so ago.)

Me too.

 

[SeriouslySearching]

Both pilot and co-pilot would not have exited the cockpit at the same time. One of them must remain there. However, one of them opening the door and leaving may give an opportunity for someone to attempt to enter and overtake the aircraft.

MOO

With the video we have seen taken of the girls in the cockpit partying...I don't think they followed protocol. Seems it did not take much for someone to schmooze their way into their pilot pit.

 

[fruity]

I think people are missing the fact that the 'pings' that kept going for 4 or 5 hours after the two cockpit communications were disabled had to be turned off manually by climbing into an electronics bay under the cockpit. I am not saying that the two cockpit controls weren't switched off shortly before the 'goodnight' comment. I am saying that the electronics were switched off 4 or 5 hours later.

There were three communications methods. Only two were switched off before the 'goodnight' comment.

 

[Nymeria]

I don't know a lot about Malaysia's political situation, but I feel like the tendency is for the media to focus on the radicals of any group. The pilot could have been a supporter of one of the opposition parties without being a fanatic - it wouldn't surprise me if this was some sort of political statement, but I do feel like we need much more info on that. He was still working, so he probably wasn't going out protesting violently, because in Malaysia, I'd imagine they lock up dissenters up reasonably quickly. I'm just saying we should be cautious, because wanting political change and committing murder-suicide or hijacking are two very different things.

Dead on, lawstudent.

Can't help but feel if he wanted to "make a statement" then by now the world should know or be aware of what he was trying to say!
(If suicide, some form of communication left beforehand, if hijacking and kidnapping,contact with demands.)
Maybe he planned something and it just got screwed up on him and the plane crashed.
My gut says this pilot was a good guy. So, I dunno :dunno:

 

[fruity]

You go thru a hatch in the cockpit to shut-off ACARS correct?

From what I understand, this hatch is outside the cockpit.

 

[popsicle]

I think people are missing the fact that the 'pings' that kept going for 4 or 5 hours after the two cockpit communications were disabled had to be turned off manually by climbing into an electronics bay under the cockpit. I am not saying that the two cockpit controls weren't switched off shortly before the 'goodnight' comment. I am saying that the electronics were switched off 4 or 5 hours later.

There were three communications methods. Only two were switched off before the 'goodnight' comment.

It wasn't 4-5 hrs later though. They were both shut off before it made the turn back.