Ditzy

Where's the plane?! Especially those of you with knowledge of radar

I am interested to hear what is in the hold, especially if rumours of cargo scanner not working and the load being the weight of 50 passengers are true.

It must be hell on earth for the waiting relatives.

OriginalSunshine

THEORY

Plane flew to 45,000 ft to depressurise, then flew with dead passengers to Iran/Afghanistan/Kurdistan area. Pilot blackmailed by threats to family to do this.

Plane landed on ground safely. Now currently being refitted with dirty bomb, to fly into major European city, most likely London.

Boomhauer

I think if the plan was to get a hold of a large commerical airliner, the persons behind the plot would have gone with a cargo plane, as that would bring less attention due to not having passengers . There is also more chance of convincing the pilot of a cargo plane to do one's bidding since hundreds of people under the pilot's watch would not need to be killed.

mikewot

Two types of radar Primary - just gives you a 'blip'. Secondary triggers a box on the aircraft (transponder) which returns a code (which the ATC system translates into the callsign on the radar screen) and the height (or altitude or Flight Level depending on the pressure setting) plus a load of other data but those are the main two bits of data.
With this flight we have very little hard facts.
We know that the transponder was switched off just after the aircraft acknowledged the call from Malaysian ATC to switch to Korea. So it could only be tracked by primary radar (which isn't accurate on telling you a height unless you also use a height finder).
The ADS-B squitter was also switched off (ADS-B transmits the aircraft's position plus some other data. Used in australia for remote areas where there is no radar coverage (most of Oz) and by geeks tracking flights but not all aircraft have them, in Europe equipage is about 90%.
The ACARS was switched off about 13 minutes prior to the transponder being switched off. ACARS transmits a host of data to the airline ops, like fuel usage by each engine, temperature, etc. What wasn't switched off was the type of ACARS Boeing has being sent by the engines to them. But Malasia didn't pay for that option so the transmitter only tried making contact, not sending data.

The facts we know are that all 4 'transmission' devices were switched off. No one has heard or seen anything since, nothing from any of the pax or crew mobile phones. No pictures taken by curious people of this mysterious plane etc.

So my theory is that a government somewhere has orchestrated this and the aircraft is on the ground somewhere. Because pilots do not generally commit suicide and this thing is too big and heavy to land anywhere but on a BIG runway. Somewhere remote so that there is no mobile signal and few people to see it.
Why? I think that there was something on it that this government wanted and now it's got it then the people and plane must remain hidden so no one discovers which country took whatever it was.

My take anyway.

Ditzy

I've gone from wondering *what* was in the cargo hold to *who* was in the cargo hold. Can a container in the hold take passengers? (Oxygen etc?) and would there be access from there to the cockpit?

flares

THEORY

Plane was made out of Lego and disintegrated into a million little bricks at 33,000ft

scrubbedexpat141

My theory is that nobody has a clue. It's too big to just disappear, surely?

ADteacher

What's so puzzling in all of this is the fact that there is no indication of anything from the passengers. In todays day and age, communication from cell phones is so common- surely if a hijacking was apparent someone would have contacted home?

Unless the plane was at 45,000 feet as I've read in a few places now? Or it was the pilot so nothing seemed suspicious at that point?

How and where would the ACARS be swtiched off from? As that happened before the pilots radioed the final 'Ok, goodnight' message- suggesting all was ok?

mikewot

Very cold and no oxygen, yes you can get through if you are a contortionist.

mikewot

The pilot can do it from the MFD menu.

commander

Initially high jacked, didn't conform to recognised air lanes, Didn't respond to IFF and was duly eliminated.

I saw it in a movie..or the gulf in the 90's

OleJanx

Or a certain plane in 1988...

commander

That's the one! Iranian?

Ditzy

No, I think it's very much still around. On the ground somewhere, but with no passengers due to forced hypoxia.

And the perpetrators have whatever is in the hold.

I don't think Captain was involved but that the cockpit was taken over. Whatever it was - very, very well planned.

Millhouse

I use an app on my ipad to track all the flights I take.

USD$ 1.99 and all of the speculation could be stopped. If only someone would cough up.