Missing Malaysian Airliner thread

[Kyyle23]

They posted photos of the two Iranians, who look very Iranian. I'm not really sure where the Malaysian spokesperson got the Mario Balotelli comparison.

 

THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME

[cabiness42]

WARNING: Make sure you are not near any sharp objects before reading.

 

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014...on-google-maps/

 

Concerned people should not rely on Google Maps to search the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 as it is not live satellite feed.

 

With the search entering its fourth day on Tuesday, several concerned citizens called The Star, believing that they have discovered the missing airplane after scrolling through the Google Maps satellite images.

 

Pointing out various airplane images in Google Maps, which clearly shows images of an airplane, most members of the public believed that it was the lost airplane.

 

A concerned reader who called in, pointed out a location at the Vietnamese island of Cầu Ma Thiên Lãnh, located south west of Ho Chi Minh City as the location of the airplane while another individual emailed the location coordinates of the missing airplane close to the Kenyir Dam in Terengganu.

 

A spokesperson from Google Malaysia said while various pictures of airplanes will be there at various locations throughout, these are not live images.

 

"Yes, the images may be there, but it is not real time satellite images as the images may have provided to us several weeks or months ago," he said when contacted.

[justBLAZE]

So Washington post is reporting the passenger cellphones are still ringing.

[southsider2k5]

THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME

 

Planes or Iranians?

 

[bmags]

So Washington post is reporting the passenger cellphones are still ringing.

 

Does that even mean anything?

[cabiness42]

Does that even mean anything?

 

If phones are ringing, then signals are reaching them. What I don't know is how far underwater a signal could reach a phone. If it's not far, then that would mean that the phone is on the ground somewhere and not in the water.

 

EDIT: Here is a bit more info: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-25...nes-active.html

 

WHY ARE THE PASSENGERS' PHONES STILL RINGING?

 

After three days, wouldn’t the phone batteries be dead by now?

 

Not necessarily. Smartphones are renowned for their poor battery life and will typically last up to around 24 hours. But the batteries of older phones can last considerably longer.

 

For example, the Nokia 100 boasts a standby battery life of a staggering 35 days. Smartphone batteries can also last longer if the handset isn’t being used, and especially if the phone is in Flight Mode.

 

However, if the phone is in Flight Mode, it switches off all wireless activity meaning calls wouldn’t be able to connect, effectively ruling out this theory.

 

If the phone batteries are dead, wouldn’t the call go straight to voicemail?

 

In a word, yes. However, the process of sending the call to voicemail can differ depending on the service provider.

 

For example, the majority of phones will go straight to voicemail, or callers will get an out of service message if voicemail hasn’t been set up.

 

This will occur even if the phone is underwater, or not near a cell signal.

 

However, some service providers will ring once or twice before the phone goes to voicemail, or cut off. This may explain the reports that claimed phones rang before seeming to hang up.

 

Some reports claim the phones are just ringing and ringing though. How is this possible?

 

Telecoms expert Alan Spencer told MailOnline that if the phones are really ringing, they can categorically not be under the sea.

 

He added that the phones will only be ringing if they are ‘switched on, not in water, the battery is charged, and [they are] near a mobile cell site.’

 

This means that if the phones are genuinely ringing, the plane needs to have landed on land – not in the sea – and be in a location where there is cell service, rather than landing in the middle of a jungle, for example.

 

Why can’t network operators locate the phones?

 

A number of family members have asked the network operators why they can’t use the phone’s signal to locate the missing people.

 

Professor William Webb, a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, told MailOnline: ‘The phones definitely won't be working. They'll be underwater, out of coverage and by this time out of battery.

 

‘So there's absolutely no way they could be used for triangulation.

 

‘As to why they are ‘ringing’ it'll be the same as if they were out of coverage - in some cases it may ring before going to voicemail.’

 

What about the T3212 timer I’ve read about?

 

The T3212 is a timer that causes a phone to periodically send a message to the network saying where it is.

 

But Professor Webb said this only works when the phone is turned on and it is in coverage. It won't work when the battery is dead.

 

What about reports that passengers are appearing online, on the QQ social network?

 

When people sign into social networks including QQ, as well as Facebook, they appear online.

 

This is the case whether they’ve signed in on a phone, tablet, PC, and laptop.

 

if missing passengers are shown as online, they may not be using the service on their phone. Instead they may still be logged in on another device.

 

If this other device shuts down or goes into standby, however, or there is a long period of inactivity, the social network will log them out, which may explain why some accounts went from online to offline over a period of three days.

 

Edited March 11, 2014 by HickoryHuskers

[pettie4sox]

This story gets wackier by the minute. Is it possible the plane was just hijacked or are people assuming the worse at this point?

[cabiness42]

This story gets wackier by the minute. Is it possible the plane was just hijacked or are people assuming the worse at this point?

 

If it was hijacked, by whom and for what purpose? Hijacking doesn't really accomplish anything if the hijackers aren't claiming responsibility and/or making demands.

[LittleHurt05]

This story gets wackier by the minute. Is it possible the plane was just hijacked or are people assuming the worse at this point?

 

If it were hijacked, where could it have landed and remained undetected for nearly 72 hours now? It wasn't a small regional jet, this was a 777.

[Brian]

Dumb theory but could it have been hijacked by people who were awful flyers and went too high and disintegrated? There'd probably still have been a sighting.

[Kyyle23]

someone please inform twitter that the LOST jokes have run their course.

[Balta1701]

Dumb theory but could it have been hijacked by people who were awful flyers and went too high and disintegrated? There'd probably still have been a sighting.

I'd actually guess that "disentigrating in the air" would leave a wider trail of debris to be found than smacking directly into the surface at high speed. Winds would scatter the debris and gasoline and oil over a wider area as it moved to the ground, and much more of it would be found floating than if it hit the water as a nearly intact piece.

[GoSox05]

If the pilots were having problems, wouldn't they have radioed in that the plane was going down?

[Kyyle23]

If the pilots were having problems, wouldn't they have radioed in that the plane was going down?

 

Thats part of the mystery. No known issues(aside from a recently repaired wingtip), no maydays, no bad weather. No plane.

[mr_genius]

This might be the History Channel marathon I had over the weekend talking, but I think the plane was inducted by aliens.

[StrangeSox]

If the pilots were having problems, wouldn't they have radioed in that the plane was going down?

 

Aviate, navigate, communicate in that order.

 

I don't believe Air France 447 ever contacted anyone, but in that case the two pilots didn't comprehend what was going on until the captain came in and by then it was too late.

 

 

[Jake]

If you want to waste some time reading about airline mysteries, google "D.B. Cooper"

[southsider2k5]

This might be the History Channel marathon I had over the weekend talking, but I think the plane was inducted by aliens.

 

[southsider2k5]

If you want to waste some time reading about airline mysteries, google "D.B. Cooper"

 

I love me some DB Cooper stuff. Decoded did a good one on him last year.

[southsider2k5]

http://www.wsbt.com/news/nationworld/Myste...course/24912128

 

CNN) -

 

The Malaysian Air Force has traced the last known location of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 to a spot above Pulau Perak, a very small island in the Straits of Malacca and hundreds of miles from the usual Kuala Lumpur to Beijing flight path, according to a senior Malaysian Air Force official. The official declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

 

If the Malaysian Air Force data cited by the source is correct, the aircraft was flying the opposite direction from its scheduled destination and on the opposite side of the Malay Peninsula from its scheduled route.

 

Previous accounts had the aircraft losing touch with air traffic control near the coast of Vietnam.

 

Additionally, the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 does not appear to be related to terrorism, the head of the international police organization Interpol said.

 

"The more information we get, the more we're inclined to conclude that it was not a terrorist incident," Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said at a news conference in Lyon, France, on Tuesday.

 

Noble's comments echo those of a U.S. intelligence official, who told CNN on Monday that indications increasingly point toward an explanation other than terrorism.

 

Among the evidence pointing in that direction, Noble said: news from Malaysian authorities that one of two people said to be traveling on stolen passports, an Iranian, was trying to travel to his mother in Germany.

 

Further, there's no evidence to suggest either was connected to any terrorist organizations, according to Malaysian investigators.

 

However, CIA Director John Brennan said his agency is not yet willing to discount the possibility of a terror link in what he called a "very disturbing" mystery.

 

"No, we're not ruling it out. Not at all," he said Tuesday at a Council on Foreign Relations event.

 

The two passengers who have dominated headlines the last two days entered Malaysia using valid Iranian passports, Noble said at a news conference. But they used stolen Austrian and Italian passports to board the missing Malaysian plane, he said.

 

Noble gave their names and ages as Pouri Nourmohammadi, 18, and Delavar Syed Mohammad Reza, 29.

 

Malaysian police had earlier identified Nourmohammadi, using a slightly different name and age, and said they believed he was trying to migrate to Germany.

 

Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar of the Royal Malaysian Police said it doesn't appear the younger Iranian posed a threat.

 

"We have been checking his background. We have also checked him with other police organizations of his profile, and we believe that he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group," Khalid said.

 

After he failed to arrive in Frankfurt, the final destination of his ticket, his mother contacted authorities, Khalid said. According to ticketing records, the ticket to Frankfurt was booked under the stolen Austrian passport.

 

CNN obtained an iReport photo of the two men with two of their friends, believed to have been taken Saturday before the plane disappeared. In it, they are posing with the two others, whose faces CNN has blurred to protect their identities.

 

The bigger piece of the puzzle

 

The identification of one of the men helps peel away a thin layer of the mystery surrounding the passenger jet, which disappeared about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

 

But in the bigger puzzle of the missing plane's whereabouts, there were no reports of progress Tuesday.

 

Every lead that has raised hopes of tracing the commercial jet and the 239 people on board has so far petered out.

 

"Time is passing by," a middle-aged man shouted at an airline agent in Beijing on Tuesday. His son, he said, was one of the passengers aboard the plane.

 

Most of those on the flight were Chinese. And for their family members, the wait has been agonizing.

 

There were also three U.S. citizens on the plane, including Philip Wood.

 

"As of yet, we know as much as everyone else," Wood's brother, Tom, told CNN's "AC360" Monday. "It seems to be getting more bizarre, the twists in the story, where they can't find anything. So we're just relying on faith."

 

The challenge facing those involved in the huge, multinational search is daunting; the area of sea they are combing is vast.

 

And they still don't know if they're looking in the right place.

 

"As we enter into Day 4, the aircraft is yet to be found," Malaysia Airlines said in a statement released Tuesday.

 

Days, weeks or even months

 

Over the past few days, search teams have been scouring tens of thousands of square miles of sea around the area where the plane was last detected, between the northeast coast of Malaysia and southwest Vietnam.

 

They have also been searching off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, in the Strait of Malacca, and north into the Andaman Sea. The airline said Tuesday that authorities are still investigating the possibility that the plane tried to turn back toward Kuala Lumpur.

 

The search also encompasses the land in between the two areas of sea.

 

But it could be days, weeks or even months before the searchers find anything that begins to explain what happened to the plane, which disappeared early Saturday en route to Beijing.

 

In the case of Air France Flight 447, which disappeared over the Atlantic in 2009, it took five days just to find the first floating wreckage.

 

And it was nearly two years before investigators found the bulk of the French plane's wreckage and the majority of the bodies of the 228 people on board, about 12,000 feet below the surface of the ocean.

 

The Gulf of Thailand, the area where the missing Malaysian plane was last detected, is much shallower, with a maximum depth of only 260 feet and an average depth of about 150 feet.

 

"If the aircraft is in the water, it should make recovery easier than the long and expensive effort to bring up key parts of the Air France plane," Bill Palmer, an Airbus A330 captain for a major airline, wrote in an opinion article for CNN.

 

But if Flight 370 went down farther west, it could have ended up in the much deeper waters of the Andaman Sea.

 

No possibilities ruled out

 

Aviation officials say they haven't ruled out any possibilities in the investigation so far. It's hard for them to reach any conclusions until they find the plane, along with its voice and data recorders.

 

Malaysian police, who are tasked with looking at whether any criminal cause was at play, are focusing on four particular areas, Khalid said Tuesday: hijacking, sabotage, psychological problems of the passengers and crew, and personal problems among the passengers and crew.

 

He said police were going through the profiles of all the passengers and crew members.

 

Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya told CNN's Jim Clancy that those involved in the search for the plane are determined to carry on.

 

"We just have to be more resolved and pay more attention to every single detail," he said Tuesday. "It must be there somewhere. We have to find it."

 

'Crucial time' passing

 

But if the plane fell into the sea, the more time that goes by, the harder the task becomes as ocean currents move things around.

 

"Crucial time is passing," David Gallo, with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Monday. "That search area -- that haystack -- is getting bigger and bigger and bigger."

 

Gallo described what will happen once some debris from the aircraft is found, though he stressed there's still no evidence the plane hit the water.

 

"Once a piece of the debris is found -- if it did impact on the water -- then you've got to backtrack that debris to try to find the 'X marks the spot' on where the plane actually hit the water, because that would be the center of the haystack.

 

"And in that haystack you're trying to find bits of that needle -- in fact, in the case of the flight data recorders, you're looking for a tiny little bit of that needle," he said.

 

Technology put to use

 

Countries involved in the search have deployed sophisticated technology to help try to track down the plane.

 

China has adjusted the commands for as many as 10 satellites in orbit so that they can assist with weather monitoring, communications and other aspects of the search, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.

 

And the United States has put a range of naval technology to use in the search.

 

That includes a Navy P-3C Orion aircraft, which can cover about 1,000 to 1,500 square miles every hour, according to the U.S. 7th Fleet.

 

The Orion, which is focused on the area off the west coast of Malaysia, has sensors that allow the crew to clearly detect small debris in the water, the fleet said.

 

CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest described the search as "extremely painstaking work," suggesting a grid would have been drawn over the ocean for teams to comb, bit by bit.

 

Quest said that the expanding search area shows how little idea rescue officials have of where the plane might be. But he's still confident they'll find it eventually.

 

"It's not hopeless by any means. They will find it.," he said. "They have to. They have to know what happened."

[LittleHurt05]

A senior Malaysian military source is claiming that they tracked the flight for an hour after it disappeared from air traffic control screens. He claims that it turned and the last sign was near the Strait of Malacca, which is on Malaysia's western coast, or the complete opposite side of the country that they have been searching.

 

 

 

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.579123

[mr_genius]

 

Haha

[witesoxfan]

Is it possible that we have a Payne Stewart sort of situation but on a greater scale?

[Chisoxfn]

A senior Malaysian military source is claiming that they tracked the flight for an hour after it disappeared from air traffic control screens. He claims that it turned and the last sign was near the Strait of Malacca, which is on Malaysia's western coast, or the complete opposite side of the country that they have been searching.

 

 

 

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.579123

any more truth to this?

[justBLAZE]

any more truth to this?

 

I believe CNN is reporting it now.