Malaysia airlines 370 with 239 people on board, 8 March 2014 #25

[SouthAussie]

Obviously, I don't have any inside info on this, but my supposition was that they were hoping that someone like a Malaysian government or military offical would break ranks & divulge info about a ANY kind of a coverup.

Good point. Then that leaves the question of what were they going to do with all the money if that didn't happen .. or if there is no coverup.

 

[2rose]

None of the articles you cited contradict what I have previously said. In this message,
I will extract quotes from YOUR cited articles which back up my previous comments.

ACARS is the Aircraft Communications Addressing & Reporting System.
It utilizes both VHF and SATCOM (e.g.

What I have previously mentioned about Rolls Royce getting it's information through
ACARS was reiterated in your cited article ... but please note of the difference of the
bolded words "and" in your statement, as opposed to the bolded word "or" in the article ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article...ne-sent-out-engine-data-before-vanishing.html
These reports are sent via VHF radio OR satellite at take-off,
during the climb, at some point while cruising, and on landing.

When a plane is close to base, it can transmit via VHF
to ground stations, which can then be uploaded to Boeing, Rolls Royce, etc. on the internet.
When a plane is too far from base for line-of-sight VHF communication, it can use SATCOM to transmit directly.

This distance is typically 200 miles from Air Traffic Control Tower.
During the functioning time of MH370's transponder, AT NO TIME was the plane further
than this distance. Actually 200 miles is about where the plane should have transferred
to Vietnam ATC (where it would have continued to use it's transponder to send data).

During 12:40 to 1:22am MYT, when MH370 was on it's scheduled flight path.
It was not necessary for MH370 to switch to SATCOM during this time.
SATCOM will only be used WHEN the transponder is further than 200 miles from
ANY air traffic control tower (typically over an ocean like the Atlantic).
Please see the image at the end of this message ... it shows a map depicting the
200 mile radius of the local Malaysian ATCs. The top circle is Vietnam ATC radius
& the circle below it (which slightly overlaps) is the Kuala-Lumpur ATC radius,

In fact, I don't think MH370 would have ever switched to SATCOM on their
scheduled flight path to Beijing. I think for all of the trip, it probably would
have been within 200 miles of an ATC ... but as the 8 March 2014 flight did not
enter China, I did not feel the need to check that country's radar maps.

two engine-health messages WERE sent to Rolls-Royce in Great Britain
... shortly before MH-370 disappeared from transponder radar.
Malaysia Airlines MUST have been subscribed to SOME service.
I assume that these messages to Rolls-Royce were not free? If they were free,
I am interested in transferring my cell phone service to those guys.

As I have previously mentioned these 2 data transmissions were sent through ACARS,
which the article you cited confirmed ...

http://www.newscientist.com/article...ne-sent-out-engine-data-before-vanishing.html
To aid maintenance, most airlines use the the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS)
... These reports are sent via VHF radio or satellite at
take-off,
during the climb,
at some point while cruising,
and on landing.

One theory is that someone in the cockpit disabled
VHF, SATCOM & the radar transponder. Easy-peasy, right? Wrong.

As I mentioned SATCOM was NOT being used during this part of the flight.
VHF (Very High Frequency) is a radio frequency band across which data is transmitted.
It is the transponder which sends the data.
If you turn off the transponder, then NO data will be sent across VHF.

There darn well better be, because no engine health messages were sent to
Rolls-Royce in Great Britain from MH-370 after the transponder quit working.
Very odd, don't you think?

NO I DO NOT think it is odd at all ! As I have stated in 3 previous messages
here (with a reference provided), it is totally what I expect !

Since the engine health reports are sent through ACARS, once the MH370 transponder
ceased functioning, no more reports were transmitted. Totally as I would expect
... all of which WAS confirmed in the article you cited.

If SATCOM was shut down, how did the plane continue to be able to handshake with a satellite every hour?
In principle, SATCOM is either completely disabled or completely enabled.
& do not forget, some talking heads disagree whether it is even possible to
shut down VHF & SATCOM from the cockpit.

If the transponder is not functioning, then the plane will not communicate through VHF.
However even if the SATCOM channels are disabled in the cockpit area,
an onboard computer in the satellite antenna on top of the plane will STILL
respond to an hourly satelllite query ... which is what happened with MH370.
Here is a quote from your cited reference in the SATCOM-PING section ...

http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/16/satcom-acars-explained/
The question is why the hijacker(s) did not prevent the plane from responding to pings:
most probably, being a networking detail, not even pilots know that their system/antenna respond
"I am here" even if the SATCOM is not being used by any onboard systems (i.e. ACARS).

Now I will address the last portion of your post, where you provide the timing
of the Inmarsat pings. Let us pretend that the terrorist masterminds figured
out how to turn off SATCOM on MH-370, but failed to recognize that it was not
really turned off & still working perfectly for Inmarsat handshakes

First of all, can you please share ANY sources that say SATCOM was shut down ?
I certainly have not seen anyone, except you, propose that theory.
In fact, for me, the later handshakes prove that SATCOM was not shut down.

Second, we don't have to pretend, because as the quotes above have shown,
that is exactly what happened ! NO MATTER what someone did in the cockpit area,
the satellite antenna would STILL respond to a satellite query!

Regarding any interpretation of where the pings originated from
- these plane-to-satellite handshakes DO NOT yield latitude-longitude coordinates.
These pings have nothing to do with GPS. The error range (limited by complete guesses
as to the hourly velocity of MH-370, doppler frequency effects, etc.) is huge.

I have previusly said many times that the Inmarsat data gave NO location data
& that the location of MH370 is the ONLY part of the Inmarsat data that is theory.
And I have further repeatedly said that the location is debatable because of that.

Since we may have years, or maybe even decades to wait for a solution in the southern Indian Ocean

We have no disagreement that it will be hard to find MH370

Satellite handshakes were never intended to be used in plane location,
however these "ping rings" ARE an operating principle of satellite technology
- the only new part is HOW they are applying them IN THIS CASE. Furthermore,
this technology WAS identified when Air France went down. Since then, Inmarsat has had it
in mind as a tool for helping to locate missing aircraft & as a result, they have been
keeping records of these "ping rings". Here is an extract from a previous ATSB report ...

The satellite’s normal function is essentially communication and it was never initially
intended to have the capability to track an aircraft. Following the Air France 447 accident,
Inmarsat engineers began recording the BTO in order to provide another
potential means of geo-locating aircraft in the event of a similar accident.

Further discussion about this can be found at this Duncan Steel webpage ...

http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/791

 

[2rose]

I suppose a lot of potential donors were turned off by the media hysteria and the Malaysian Govt ineptitude.

I think timing was also a factor. This campaign may have met with better success if it could have
been launched say at the end of March when public sentiment & media coverage was extremely high.
Although some of us Websleuth posters continue to follow the story avidly, for much of the public,
the story has now gone cold & they have moved on with their daily lives.

Good point. Then that leaves the question of what were they going to do with all the money if that didn't happen .. or if there is no coverup.

In that case, I think the money could have been diverted to other things such as:
- a campaign of preventing future plane disappearances
- upgrade of Malaysian Airlines to universal SATCOM tracking
- split up among the surviving family members.

But there are always little things that are covered up, LOL
Like ... security failures, upgrade postponements, late mechanical checks, skipped inspections,
excessive cargo weight, contraban shipments, etc. Malaysia Airlines is not an independant
commercial enterprise ... it operates under some kind of government umbrella. And in recent
years, the Airline has been in the decline with a very high percentage of employee departure.
The airline is having union problems right now.

For instance, in the April 2014 sinking of the South Korean ship
(which resulted in the lives of a couple hundred teenagers), it was found
that in recent years, the Captain had made a few million dollars by illegally
taking on excessive cargo weight in "under-the-table" shipments.

Passenger Philip Wood's partner, Sarah Bajc is a main player in this fundraising campaign.
She is an outspoken family member who believes that a cover-up is definitely involved.
These days computers are everywhere & hacker intrusion spawns a number of cover ups.
In my opinion, because of their computer related careers, Wood & Bajc were
probably more aware about such things, than the average blue collar worker.

The US government & military are big clients of Microsoft & IBM.
As an ex-Microsoft employee, Bajc would have been able to
converse somewhat knowledgely with Wood about data protection.
As an IBM technical storage executive, an important aspect of Wood's job
would have been to protect his clients' data from hacker intrusion.
Whenever there were newspaper reports about government agencies
being hacked, Wood would have probably followed & researched them,
in order to prevent the same thing re-occurring to his clients.
Many ordinary computer users now react to the latest virus news
by strengthing our computer firewalls.

 

[SouthAussie]

"Malaysian Airlines' shares soared by nearly 17% on 3 July after reports circulated that the state-owned group was mulling over being bought out by private companies.

The sources also say that by privatising the airline, investors would be able to cut headcount, focus on installing a new management team and sell off some of its lucrative engineering capabilities."

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/malaysia-a...ns-after-missing-flight-mh370-mystery-1455121

 

[ElleElle]

I been thinking this over & maybe you are both right ... here is some more clarification
What I said before is still correct, but also ...

Commercial airports use secondary radar with transponder identification.
The military uses both primary AND secondary radar.

Since MH370's transponder was no longer functioning,
the military was using it's PRIMARY radar system
when it detected an "unknown flying object" (a plane)
... which has since been labelled as MH370.

Does Malaysia ATC in KL not share commercial and military radar in the same building, hence the ball drop?

 

[Mr. Noatak]

My opinions only, no facts here:

The primary military radar hits attributed to MH-370 might be a case-study of a non-double blind evaluation. If you had no knowledge that a major passenger plane disappeared, you might well attribute a couple of odd radar hits to birds, civilian aircraft, weather conditions, etc. BUT, if you have been previously told that an aircraft disappeared, you naturally will associate these "hits" with that particular aircraft. Humans are associative thinkers by design.

Interestingly, the Internet as a whole, is antithetical to double-blind analyses. This is because the moment a big story appears (lottery winner, aircraft disappears, etc.), the 'net' is flooded with stories specifically related to that incident and these stories drown-out all less-biased information that existed before.

I remain neutral regarding whether MH-370 itself was the UFO detected by military radar .

 

[2rose]

Does Malaysia ATC in KL not share commercial and military radar in the same building, hence the ball drop?

Yes I have also read that the 2 Malaysian offices were in the same building.
But I think they would be 2 different radar entities.

The problem with the Malaysians seem to be that they don't have
a historical culture of sharing infomation freely.
So it doesn't matter if the offices were 2 floors apart or 20 miles apart.
If the Malaysian employees are told not to share infomation with outsiders,
then they won't do it because of the risk of losing their their jobs ...
they would be concerned with the resulting personal consequences of facing
difficulties supporting their family. The Malaysian employees would have
followed protocol & relayed the information to their supervisor & let him/her
make any important decisions of who to contact. And this was all happening when
the people in authority were not at their work desk, but at home sleeping.

The Malaysian Airlines announcement that the plane was missing came at about 7:30am MYT.

When we consider why the Malaysian military did not contact Malaysia Airlines.
this timing is important. Around the 2:30am MYT radar blip, the Malaysian military
was unaware of ANY missing planes ... & much less WHICH airline to communicate with.
The radar blip was not identifying itself, so it could have been any international plane.

Furthermore, ANY military has a very authoritative structure which follows
an explicit chain of command. Any low level soldier monitoring the radar
would face punishment if he broke the hierarchical rules.
All soldiers are instructed to report any anomolies to their superior,
who has the responsibilty of making any decisions about it.

All militaries by nature, keep a tight control of information,
believing that it would be detrimental to share their country's secrets
with the world outside of their own organization.

Finally it is my understanding, that the final radar blip about 2:30am MYT
was seen by the Thailand military ... so they were
not in the same buidling, but in an entirely different country.
It actually took a number of days before the Thailand government
would determine to go public with that info.

 

[2rose]

Since MH370's transponder was no longer functioning,
the military was using it's PRIMARY radar system
when it detected an "unknown flying object" (a plane)
... which has since been labelled as MH370.

I remain neutral regarding whether MH-370 itself was the UFO detected by military radar

Mr. Noatak is correct that there is no proof that the UFO was MH370
& that is why I was very careful in my message to NOT assert it.
I wanted to make it clear that the claim came later.

However now that the question has been raised of whether the UFO blip was
MH370 or not, I will share the info that leads me to believe that it was.

@02:22am MYT (@18:22 UTC) final primary radar fix occurred at 12,000'
(exact location is known to them) headed toward the Strait of Malacca

This is the plane's last appearance as shown by ANY traditional radar system.
As I have outlined in my previous messages, SATCOM kicks in automatically
when traditional radar systems CEASE coverage. So what happened next ?

@02:25am MYT (@18:25 UTC) First 'Log-on request' sent by aircraft to Inmarsat-3 F1 satellite
which was then followed by a number of hourly Classic Aero handshakes.

Since Inmarsat's theoretical calculations place the plane in this same area,
there is now a time & space connection ...
& ergo comes the logical inference that the blip was indeed MH370.

 

[2rose]

Still, to me, the biggest mystery of all this is the transponder being disabled immediately before the transition to Vietnam ATC.

For me the BIGGEST question is why the plane ended up in the Indian Ocean.
I think we can all agree that the plane did not fly itself there ... somewhere
along the line, there had to be some input from a human being to send it there.

When we analyze this question, I think it helps theorize about the cause of this incident.

For example, if the cause of disappearance was pilot suicide, it seems to me that the surest way
of achieving that goal was a fast plan to dive into the South China Sea at around 1:30am MYT.
Flying the plane for over 7 more hours would leave so much time & opportunities for others to
intercept the pilot suicide & murder attempt upon the passengers. So if pilot suicide is not the
cause, then what is the cause for ditching the plane in one of the remotest spots in the world ?

The longer it takes for a solution to the plane's disappearance,
the more varied possibilities are examined ... I have considered many of them

One of those came to mind again, when I read yesterday's CNN article about the
current deadliest ever outbreak of the ebola virus. Since it started in March 2014
at least 759 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have been infected
... including the death of 467 people ... a 61.5% mortality rate ...

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/27/world/ebola-virus-explainer/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

One of the first MH370 "conspiracy theories" I heard about concerned the factual
death of 2 ex Navy Seals while guarding a highly top secret cargo in Sierra Leone.
Another fact I heard about was the rare one day closing of the airport at Diego Garcia.
Another fact I heard about was that a team of top disease experts from USA & China
flew into Diego Garcia. (if needed, I have links).

Now I am not trying to build a "conspiracy theory" around these 3 facts ...
I am just saying that among the many possibilities for the MH370 disappearance,
one of the things I have wondered about is if there could have been "something" on that
plane that would have caused harm to a population, whether directly (like a biological virus)
OR indirectly (like a weapon of mass destruction) which could have been a reason for taking
this plane far away to the southern Indian Ocean & making it hard for anyone to find ???

The fact that Malaysia admits there was some secret cargo on this plane,
that they won't discuss, does nothing to eliminate these kind of suspicions

 

[Rhyolite]

(snip)

This distance is typically 200 miles from Air Traffic Control Tower.
During the functioning time of MH370's transponder, AT NO TIME was the plane further
than this distance. Actually 200 miles is about where the plane should have transferred
to Vietnam ATC (where it would have continued to use it's transponder to send data).

During 12:40 to 1:22am MYT, when MH370 was on it's scheduled flight path.
It was not necessary for MH370 to switch to SATCOM during this time.
SATCOM will only be used WHEN the transponder is further than 200 miles from
ANY air traffic control tower (typically over an ocean like the Atlantic).
(snip)


Further discussion about this can be found at this Duncan Steel webpage ...

http://www.duncansteel.com/archives/791

See my bolded quote above.

I think you mean to say the aircraft is further than 200 miles,

The transponder is a totally different system than ACARS, the INMARSAT (SATCOM) satellite, VHF and HF radios. The SATCOM ACARS etc., do not replace any of the functionality of the transponder. They are independent systems, though perhaps in glass cockpit they may share a CRT display.

At distances beyond the radio horizon SATCOM would be the alternate data path for VHF ACARS. The HF radio normally the alternate path for VHF voice. SATCOM phone and ACARS teletype might be a fallback in the event HF radio and VHF radio are not working.

When I mentioned above the independence of these systems, I did not mean to say independent of the power bus. There are several layers of redundancy in the power systems and it is speculated that the INMARSAT SDU had its power cut for a period. I believe that the SDU is powered from only one of the main buses, so if there were a reason to alternate the power source on board, that would explain the interruption.

My money is on a fire related In Flight Emergency (IFE) (not Entertainment).

 

[Rhyolite]

For me the BIGGEST question is why the plane ended up in the Indian Ocean.
I think we can all agree that the plane did not fly itself there ... somewhere
along the line, there had to be some input from a human being to send it there.

When we analyze this question, I think it helps theorize about the cause of this incident.

For example, if the cause of disappearance was pilot suicide, it seems to me that the surest way
of achieving that goal was a fast plan to dive into the South China Sea at around 1:30am MYT.
Flying the plane for over 7 more hours would leave so much time & opportunities for others to
intercept the pilot suicide & murder attempt upon the passengers. So if pilot suicide is not the
cause, then what is the cause for ditching the plane in one of the remotest spots in the world ?

The longer it takes for a solution to the plane's disappearance,
the more varied possibilities are examined ... I have considered many of them

One of those came to mind again, when I read yesterday's CNN article about the
current deadliest ever outbreak of the ebola virus. Since it started in March 2014
at least 759 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia have been infected
... including the death of 467 people ... a 61.5% mortality rate ...

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/27/world/ebola-virus-explainer/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

One of the first MH370 "conspiracy theories" I heard about concerned the factual
death of 2 ex Navy Seals while guarding a highly top secret cargo in Sierra Leone.
Another fact I heard about was the rare one day closing of the airport at Diego Garcia.
Another fact I heard about was that a team of top disease experts from USA & China
flew into Diego Garcia. (if needed, I have links).

Now I am not trying to build a "conspiracy theory" around these 3 facts ...
I am just saying that among the many possibilities for the MH370 disappearance,
one of the things I have wondered about is if there could have been "something" on that
plane that would have caused harm to a population, whether directly (like a biological virus)
OR indirectly (like a weapon of mass destruction) which could have been a reason for taking
this plane far away to the southern Indian Ocean & making it hard for anyone to find ???

The fact that Malaysia admits there was some secret cargo on this plane,
that they won't discuss, does nothing to eliminate these kind of suspicions

1) If it were ebola, why not have the plane divert to a remote place an quarantine the passengers and crew, it would not be a first time.

2) If I were pilot of a plane and got instructions via TELEX to DITCH the plane because some passengers had a deadly virus, I would divert unannounced to the nearest airfield and park on the far taxiway nearest a public road. I would then phone the national media. That way nobody is going to slaughter the passengers without the world seeing.

3) The "secret cargo" in my opinion are batteries manufactured for a major electronics firm. (Not sure why they would be going to China). In my estimation the total weight of the waybill includes only a fraction which are batteries, the rest are phone handsets or radios. My belief is that the freight forwarder and airline are on a gag order, because prematurely releasing the name of the electronics firm would unfairly disparage their stock price. If the plane is never found xxxxx company might be sued in a civil trial.

 

[2rose]

3) The "secret cargo" in my opinion are batteries manufactured for a major electronics firm. (Not sure why they would be going to China). In my estimation the total weight of the waybill includes only a fraction which are batteries, the rest are phone handsets or radios. My belief is that the freight forwarder and airline are on a gag order, because prematurely releasing the name of the electronics firm would unfairly disparage their stock price. If the plane is never found xxxxx company might be sued in a civil trial.

Sounds like you may be unaware that this info has already been made public.
FYI see message #66 here, where I gave a reference showing that
the batteries were shipped from Motorola & linked it to the
20 Freescale passengers (because Freescale is a former branch of Motorola).

 

[Mr. Noatak]

My opinions only, no facts here,

A lot of interesting posts in this page and on the previous one. Keep up the good work, probing, questioning, thinking for yourselves!

 

[SouthAussie]

"Malaysia will send more equipment to the southern Indian Ocean to join the search for missing flight MH370.

Defence minister Hishammuddin Hussein said a Malaysian navy ship equipped with a multi-beam echo sounder - a device to map the ocean floor - would set sail on August 4 for the deep-sea search zone far off the West Australian coast.

He said state energy firm Petronas, together with Deftech and Phoenix International, would deploy a towed device called a synthetic aperture sonar to scan the ocean floor.

Shipbuilder Boustead Heavy Industries, together with iXBlue Australia, would send a deep towed side-scan sonar with a remotely operated vehicle."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-...-mh370-malaysia-deploy-more-equipment/5575700

 

[2rose]

Back in May 2014 on an Air New Zealand flight, there was a couple of tense minutes when the pilot locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit area ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-pilot-cockpit-flight-rage-takeoff-delay.html

The first officer entered the cockpit by another entry point, which was not revealed due to security reasons.

 

[ElleElle]

One of my first original thoughts was MH370 was hijacked when either the Captain or FO left the cockpit. The target was the Petronas towers in KL. There was a struggle, the aircraft going up and down with such GForce killing all onboard. It continued flying unbeknownst to anyone. The only issue with this is, nobody taking responsibility for this. Or have they?

 

[Steely Dan]

Over the weekend I visited my sister. Her best friend lives across the street and is married to a pilot. I asked him what his theory on this disappearance was. He really didn't have a solid answer. There is too much hinky about it. He said that he found it very hard to believe that a plane could crash without leaving a debris field. Even if the plane pulled a "Miracle on the Hudson" type landing, which is almost absolutely impossible here, and the plane sunk some oil or something would rise to the surface.

I told him my conspiracy theory about the plane being landed on a small island to use in an attack on the Malaysian government in the future. He said that people don't understand that it's almost impossible to hide a 777 without anyone knowing about it. Satellites make it very, very difficult. He also said that with any conspiracy theory there is always a problem with it.

He also said that many pilots have flight simulators in their houses and that isn't very surprising.

Just letting you guys know.

 

[Mr. Noatak]

My opinions only, no facts here:

Before I show a crude partial timeline, remember that I do believe the oil rig worker who may have seen a "plane on fire" did see something. This man exists and the story is not spoofed. The problem is that THERE IS NO TIME GIVEN for his observations. In addition, it seems that the climb to +40,000 feet has since been disclaimed. Normally my timelines take hundreds of hours (Holly Bobo, McStay Family, Michelle Parker) to create and edit. This partial timeline represents only several hours of work and thus may contain simple errors/oversights and is only for the purposes of seeing if anything jumps out at me. I am thinking-out-loud in other words.
______________________________________

12:41 AM local time: MH-370 takes off.

1:19 AM: the First Officer signs off normally from Malaysian airspace.

Between 1:07 and 1:37 AM: engine health messaging via ACARS stopped working; if intentional, this requires accessing breakers beneath a hatch in the forward portion of the cabin, in the floor near the place in the galley where meals are prepared. Since meals are prepared about 40 minutes into flight, this hatch could have been blocked by beverage and food carts and crew traffic by 1:21 AM. If this is a terrorist event, and IF the cabin passengers and crew were not already silenced, it seems likely that the hatch was accessed prior to 1:21 AM, before meal preparations would have normally began.

~1:20 AM: Eight villagers on the east coast of the Malaysian Peninsula heard loud and unusual noises, similar to a jet engine. They could not see any object. I recognize that the time of this event is likely several minutes too early. However, the timing was just an estimate to begin with.

1:21 AM: the transponder radar quit working at cruising altitude (35,000 feet). This was 90 miles east of Malaysia, near the navigational waypoint "Igari".

?1:21 AM ? to ?2:51 AM?: regarding the oil rig worker who saw an aircraft that may have been on fire, etc., NO TIME WAS EVER GIVEN for this observation. My large range for this event covers the various estimates I have seen. All I can say with comfort is that this witness sighting was during or after MH-370 disappeared from transponder radar, and on the same morning.

Just after 1:21 AM: military primary radar indicates that MH-370 turned west, heading towards a navigational waypoint called "Vampi". From there it flew towards waypoint "Gival" south of Phuket Island. Stories that the plane climbed to 45,000 feet seem to have been discredited. The plane may have descended to an altitude of 4000 to 5000 feet, supporting the observations of some ground witnesses on the Malaysian Peninsula. Remember though, even a nominally-experienced airman would know that descending to this altitude would not even begin to hide it from many military primary radar sites.

1:28 AM: Thailand military radar detected a UFO flying opposite the official route direction of MH-370, and back towards the airport of origin. The UFO later turned west towards Butterworth, a city along the Malacca Strait. At some point, the UFO may have descended too low to be further tracked by Thailand military radar?

~1:30 AM: two fishermen located near the Malaysian-Thailand border of the Peninsula saw a jetliner flying low. I judge that this jetliner was still over the Gulf of Thailand, if barely.

~1:45 AM: a businessman saw a bright white light descending towards the Gulf of Thailand (South China Sea). This witness was located on the east coast of the Malaysian Peninsula. The witness thought it might be a descending aircraft, but had questions about the aircraft lights.

~1:51 AM: the First Officer's cell phone handshakes with a cell tower in Penang, Malaysia (located about 250 miles west from where the radar transponder stopped working). This successful handshake could support that the plane was at a lower altitude AND heading westward. The lack of other device handshakes from the plane (those passenger and cabin crew devices left on by accident or purpose) is a conundrum. I have previously questioned whether this event actually occurred.

before 2:11 AM: A plane-wide power outage occurred, cutting power to all but the engines. Note that this would not render the plane invisible to military primary radar. It would serve no sensible purpose to an educated airman. The event seems nonsensical at first-glance.

2:15 AM: a UFO that could be MH-370 was last located by Malaysian military radar 200 miles NW of Penang Island, in the Malacca Strait. At this time, the plane seemed to be pointed towards waypoint "Igrex", which would take it over the Andaman Islands. Note that even the officials are cautious about claiming that this was MH-370. Also, I have seen claimed times as late as 2:40 to 2:45 AM for this event. If the later timing is true, then it becomes important to compare this information with the Inmarsat data interpretation.

2:55 AM: Chinese researchers recorded a seismic event at this time, about 116 km northeast of where the transponder radar quit working. It has been proposed that a plane plunging into the sea caused this seismic event. I recognize that this seismic event may be a red herring. The only thing that makes it weakly interesting is that it plays into the oil rig worker's sighting.
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My first impression from this crude timeline is that the ground witnesses in Malaysia ARE relevant and their stories (published VERY EARLY on) are seemingly consistent with independent measurements of the paths and altitudes of MH-370. My second impression is that there was a very short time (around 9 minutes or less) between the failure of the transponder radar and the plane turning west and descending out of 35,000 feet to around 5000 feet. Now, if your goal is to silence the passengers and cabin crew via oxygen deprivation, you DO NOT DESCEND. Also, depressurization takes time AND the cabin crew can utilize their portable oxygen bottles even if the cabin becomes depressurized AND oxygen flow to passenger drop-down masks is somehow disabled. I assume that agreement is almost universal that if MH-370 was hijacked by simply locking the flimsy cockpit door, a couple hundred panicked passengers and crew would have broken into the cockpit in seven hours time. Probably within an hour or much less. Plus there would have been many attempted/successful cell phone calls/texts in the meantime. In order for the hijack scenario to make any sense, most or all of the passengers and crew in the cabin had to be silenced well before MH-370 turned west and crossed the Malaysian Peninsula. So, if this is a terrorist action, the cabin may have been set to decompress and oxygen to the masks disabled around/before the time of take-off. By the time that ACARS was disabled via the cabin floor-panel (maybe well before 1:37 AM), all people in the cabin may have already been silenced. It could be the perfect crime- gradually disable everybody in the cabin during the routine climb to 35,000 feet- and you own the plane! This is the one time period when even the cabin crew might not become aware of the oxygen situation and eventually succumb. It is not even clear to me if the oxygen masks would drop-down in this gradual situation. I hope that this scenario is impossible, because if it were possible, it could be played out again and again. I mean to say- can someone in the cockpit actually perform this action (deprive the passengers and crew of any access to normal cabin oxygen, even via the drop-down masks, during climb to cruising altitude)? If so, something is very wrong with current security arrangements.

Are there logical arguments against this terrorist scenario? Yes. First, it is not clear how oxygen availability to the cockpit during the long climb to cruising altitude would be affected by decompressing the cabin. It is not clear that supplemental oxygen available to the member(s) of the cockpit would be sufficient to pull this off. To conduct the first part of the operation (silencing everybody in the cabin during takeoff and ascent to cruising altitude), you have to be very sophisticated in your planning. Yet, we are talking about the same plane that supposedly later descended to 5000 feet or less AND shut off all power (except to the engines), even though neither of these exercises serve any sensible purpose regarding military primary radar detection (these actions seem rather unsophisticated). Lastly, the supposed handshake between the First Officer's cell phone and tower could not have occurred, as reported. If this handshake did occur between the aircraft and the ground, it presents serious logical problems to almost any scenario and the crash likely occurred before this supposed event.

Look, I myself do not prefer the terrorist angle, so I am not taking sides, but here I am telling you how a terrorist action could have been successfully pulled-off and what the constraints are. I personally would prefer to see a crash in the Gulf of Thailand or the easternmost Malacca Strait, as a result of catastrophic failure, even an accidental or defensive missile strike. But there is little or no physical evidence to support my own opinions.

What I find most ironic about this mystery is that if you proposed that MH-370 simply crashed near-to where it disappeared from transponder radar, you would be a conspiracy theorist. BUT, if you proposed that it WAS a terrorist conspiracy and MH-370 was deliberately flown into the southern Indian Ocean, you WOULD NOT be a conspiracy theorist! It can't get any better than this. You cannot make this stuff up!

Sleuth On!

 

[SouthAussie]

Back in May 2014 on an Air New Zealand flight, there was a couple of tense minutes when the pilot locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit area ...

Very interesting ... so there is a secret way to get into the cockpit. Makes sense. There would need to be a way, in case of emergency.

 

[SouthAussie]

"With almost 121 days since the mysterious disappearance of flight MH 370, family members are still hoping for the return of their loved ones, despite knowing the flight ended in the Indian Ocean.

Jacquita Gomes, wife of MH 370 inflight supervisor, Patrick Gomes said the hope remained that they were still on land, which made their chances of coming back higher.

"We are just carrying on with life at the moment, we just don't want it (incident) to be quiet, people need to still remember that they are still out there," she said at the launching of MH 370 Tribute Photo Exhibition by Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein here."

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/07/06/mh370-120-days-after-family-members-still-hope/