ozzieeagle

Your thinking like a European though.... I understand on my fairly limited but probing questions of Chinese peoples views of Malaysia... and from my understanding it's the Asian country where the Chinese are liked the least or receive the most negativity.

Wol

Anyone know if they've given up on any other search areas? They seem to be concentrating on one venue, which is totally reliant on the identification of a fuzzy sat image as being part of an aircraft.

Unless they locate the pinger in the next week or two the chances of recovery seem infinitesimal, barring a fortunate random sighting on the surface.

Without a reasonably accurate final position no-one could expect a search of the Indian ocean underwater to be attempted - let alone the China sea etc.

Keep our fingers crossed that the "debris" is found and identified very soon, otherwise we probably have an unexplained accident unless intelligence / police investigation turns something up.

GarryP

They have shifted to this area. However I saw a report that they have 'widened' the original area after having found nothing. That kind of implies that even with the coords they had, and the modelling they had done, they have found nothing and the probability of success is declining.

Even if they find surface debris, they still have to backtrack 10 days worth of drift in order to find out where the seabed debris might be - and then go looking for the pinger (and where exactly is the distress beacon they should have had for the debris anyway?).

They are supposed to have good weather today - so I'd say that if they don't spot something today they probably won't ever.

scrubbedexpat098

Anyone considered the possibility that there was no MH370, and this has all been to divert the worlds attention from a Russian/Chinese lead plan to hide my ****ing ipod

Amazulu

I was more referring to the fact that like a satellite launch capability, the UK remains the only western nation to unilaterally relinquish a long-range MR/SAR/ASW setup. They basically invented it and from the '30s until a few years ago were the best in the business

It's sad to see the end of a warrior nation

Bermudashorts

Could someone (Garry maybe?) quickly recap where we are with this, that many different stories I have lost track now.

Did we ever find out where the pilot's family went to?

Pollyana

Somewhere well away from the public eye I would hope.

Having got friends who are arline pilots I really feel for them. One of my friends is a total airliner devotee and spends much of his spare time on simulators, reading anything aircraft related, watching air disaster dvds etc - nothing sinister about any of it, he has just lived and breathed flying since he was about 9 years old.

Shard

It certainly distracts attention from the Crimea, for instance.

moneypenny20

Plane went missing in Gulf of Thailand. Worked out it carried on elsewhere. May possibly be down in the ocean off WA.

I think that covers the 'facts' at the moment.

renth

a P3 Orion just flew over my house. I've seen a couple today already plus a Globemaster. I'm listening out for the Poseidon.

I don't think they are going to find anything, sadly. Hope I'm wrong though.

[edit] just watching the news, it wasn't a Globemaster it was a Chinese heavy lift aircraft, heading out to the search area at about lunchtime today. The news is the Chinese have spotted something by satellite and I think they've sent their plane out to check it out so they can get the glory if it's MH370. It was this one: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/ful...f-perth-coast/[/edit]

GarryP

The attention all seems to be on the south indian ocean option (seems as if the northern corridor has been downgraded).

There have been quite a few aviation industry stories run about how it could have been an accident - however I think the primary scenario is now firmly pilot carried out take over and suicide. The story on the family moving out has gone quiet (I think Malaysia is clamping down on potential bad press).

China have just announced that they might have found something on more satellite photos - but for all the evidence on the pics, nobody has yet found floating debris, yet alone tracked it back to any underwater remains.

Pollyana

I got the impression the focus is now more on the possibility of incapacitated crew ( through something like hypoxia) with the plane flying on until the fuel was exhausted.?

GarryP

Pilots have been trying to push the idea that the crew heroically tried to deal with a fire, turning the aircraft and then suffering from hypoxia with the plane flying on.

Problem is, that doesn't tie in with the actual flight path taken by the aircraft, or with the ping data. And in fact having ping data and 4 hours extra flying doesn't tie in with a fire either.

Thus we get back to intentional action.

Shard

Do you think the intention was to fly the plane into the middle of the ocean or that it was some kind of hijack?

GarryP

Thus far it looks like suicide (which is why the pilots are trying to come up with some other idea). Nobody is quite sure why he would aim to avoid radar, disappear and then look to ditch the aircraft in the middle of nowhere - rather than just head directly downwards, but it's the best scenario for fitting the facts that people have come up with.

The problem with hijack is nobody on the aircraft looks like a likely candidate, and no message got out at all. In theory you might have had someone who was hijacking the aircraft, incapacitated the pilots almost immediately, had the FMS fly a route towards somewhere north, then stack it over the Andaman Islands - but the ping/flight time doesn't work.