Morning everyone!
I'm bring over Derryn's "epic post" from yesterday, b/c I didn't get to read all of it yesterday. So I just read all of it (yes, to the end Derryn!!) and would like to post some thoughts.
Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Malaysia airlines plane may have crashed 239 people on board #19
I think you make very good points, and the life insurance angle is very interesting. I honestly never even thought about that. But yes, that would answer some major questions I had in the pilot-suicide scenario.
So basically, IIUC, you are saying that the pilot wanted to end his life, but he didn't want it to bring shame, bad name, financial problems, etc., to his family. I hope I'm getting that right. That does make sense. I had questioned why he woudln't have left a note, but these points as well as the life insurance policy illustrate why he might NOT want to write a note or even for anyone to know he did it.
I also agree that whoever did this, it seems like the end result they wanted was for a significant length of time before the plane was ever found, IF it was even found. As I've said in previous posts, if it were not for the Inmarsat satellite pings, we would not even have a Northern arc or a Southern arc. The search area would be HUGE, because it would encompass basically everything within a huge circle, the cicumference being where the plane's fuel would run out. (I hope I'm using "circumference" in the right context - been a while since geometry class!!). Meanwhile, the plane is sitting deep South Indian Ocean - IDK but I don't think it would ever have been found that way - not until pieces of it washed to shore, and even then how would they find out where the plane actually sunk and where to dig things out from underwater. Not to mention the extreme depth of the ocean in that part.
But I still have some question in the pilot-scenario:
-how did he incapacitate the co-pilot?
-what did he do with the rest of the crew? If they were alive, wouldn't they have eventually asked the cockpit if they want any food or drink, etc.? I suppose the pilot could have just said no, we don't need anything. IDK. Also, how did the rest of the crew not notice the change in flight plan, which would have required 2 obvious turns (one to West, and one to South)? I am assuming some if not all of them would have regularly flown Kuala Lumpur-Beijing before. Wouldn't they notice these turns? (I'm taking altitude changes out of the equation b/c I don't know if those reports are true or not).
-What did the pilot do with himself? Did he kill himself before the plane ran out of fuel and crashed? In that case, wouldn't the rest of crew memebers have noticed if they tried to communicate with cockpit and receiving no response? Or did he kill everyone on board sometime prior to crashing? If so, how? He would have to at least kept himeslf alive to make the turn South. If he killed himself, but kept crew members (flight attendants) alive, the crew members would have noticed something wrong in the cockpit (no communication). If he didn't kill himself, so did he just wait calmly in the cockpit for 4+ hours and even through the plane running out of fuel?
So I am thinking there are several scenarios possible:
-pilots dead but crew members and passengers alive. (Captain Shah dead after making final turn South and setting on auto-pilot).
-Captain Shah alive but everyone else dead
-Only co-pilot dead, and everyone else (Captain Shah, passengers, other crew) all alive.
-And then there is still the Why. Even though, yes, I agree with you about the fact that we can't try to find reason with the unreasonable. But in the case of pilot-suicide, IIUC, the whole point was for Captain Shah to end his life. There had to have been some signs in his life or something that led him to wanting to do that, to go to this extreme. Without any kind of previous signs, the only thing I can think of is if he was already mentally unstable, and suddenly just "snapped." But then wouldn't this mentally unstableness come to light with interviews with family members and those close to him? I guess so far, we don't know what information those interviews have gleaned, if the interviews have even ocurred. But I would think that for someone with that level of mental unstableness, to be able to just "snap" and hatch up this extreme plan which takes so many lives - there would have been people who knew about this mental unstableness.
So, I guess my mindset as of now is I am still unsure. Pretty much everything is open to me as of now. The only thing I have ruled out is mechanical failure. That means the perpetrator is either hijacker(s) or the pilot. I suppose, well, how can we even rule out any of the rest of the crew? What if there was a deranged crew member who managed to get some kind of weapon on the plane and took both pilots hostage? The sad thing is that because we don't have any answers, we can't rule anything out. And that leaves all of the crew and all of the passengers. And that is sad because of course most are victims of this tragedy, but we just don't know what is what in this case. We have no answers. It could have been the pilot. It could have been a hijacker in the disguise of a passenger. It could even have been another crew member. We don't know.
Thank you Derryn for your unique perspective and for all the insight into aviation and pilots. I never honestly knew it was so extremely difficult and cut-throat competition at the top, like pilots of 777's for commercial airliners. And I never understood fully the sacrifices these pilots make to get to where they are. Not just those pilots, but even pilots of crop-dusters, etc., like you were saying, they still are required certain number of flying hours, which they have to pay for.
JMO.
I'm bring over Derryn's "epic post" from yesterday, b/c I didn't get to read all of it yesterday. So I just read all of it (yes, to the end Derryn!!) and would like to post some thoughts.
Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - Malaysia airlines plane may have crashed 239 people on board #19
I think you make very good points, and the life insurance angle is very interesting. I honestly never even thought about that. But yes, that would answer some major questions I had in the pilot-suicide scenario.
So basically, IIUC, you are saying that the pilot wanted to end his life, but he didn't want it to bring shame, bad name, financial problems, etc., to his family. I hope I'm getting that right. That does make sense. I had questioned why he woudln't have left a note, but these points as well as the life insurance policy illustrate why he might NOT want to write a note or even for anyone to know he did it.
I also agree that whoever did this, it seems like the end result they wanted was for a significant length of time before the plane was ever found, IF it was even found. As I've said in previous posts, if it were not for the Inmarsat satellite pings, we would not even have a Northern arc or a Southern arc. The search area would be HUGE, because it would encompass basically everything within a huge circle, the cicumference being where the plane's fuel would run out. (I hope I'm using "circumference" in the right context - been a while since geometry class!!). Meanwhile, the plane is sitting deep South Indian Ocean - IDK but I don't think it would ever have been found that way - not until pieces of it washed to shore, and even then how would they find out where the plane actually sunk and where to dig things out from underwater. Not to mention the extreme depth of the ocean in that part.
But I still have some question in the pilot-scenario:
-how did he incapacitate the co-pilot?
-what did he do with the rest of the crew? If they were alive, wouldn't they have eventually asked the cockpit if they want any food or drink, etc.? I suppose the pilot could have just said no, we don't need anything. IDK. Also, how did the rest of the crew not notice the change in flight plan, which would have required 2 obvious turns (one to West, and one to South)? I am assuming some if not all of them would have regularly flown Kuala Lumpur-Beijing before. Wouldn't they notice these turns? (I'm taking altitude changes out of the equation b/c I don't know if those reports are true or not).
-What did the pilot do with himself? Did he kill himself before the plane ran out of fuel and crashed? In that case, wouldn't the rest of crew memebers have noticed if they tried to communicate with cockpit and receiving no response? Or did he kill everyone on board sometime prior to crashing? If so, how? He would have to at least kept himeslf alive to make the turn South. If he killed himself, but kept crew members (flight attendants) alive, the crew members would have noticed something wrong in the cockpit (no communication). If he didn't kill himself, so did he just wait calmly in the cockpit for 4+ hours and even through the plane running out of fuel?
So I am thinking there are several scenarios possible:
-pilots dead but crew members and passengers alive. (Captain Shah dead after making final turn South and setting on auto-pilot).
-Captain Shah alive but everyone else dead
-Only co-pilot dead, and everyone else (Captain Shah, passengers, other crew) all alive.
-And then there is still the Why. Even though, yes, I agree with you about the fact that we can't try to find reason with the unreasonable. But in the case of pilot-suicide, IIUC, the whole point was for Captain Shah to end his life. There had to have been some signs in his life or something that led him to wanting to do that, to go to this extreme. Without any kind of previous signs, the only thing I can think of is if he was already mentally unstable, and suddenly just "snapped." But then wouldn't this mentally unstableness come to light with interviews with family members and those close to him? I guess so far, we don't know what information those interviews have gleaned, if the interviews have even ocurred. But I would think that for someone with that level of mental unstableness, to be able to just "snap" and hatch up this extreme plan which takes so many lives - there would have been people who knew about this mental unstableness.
So, I guess my mindset as of now is I am still unsure. Pretty much everything is open to me as of now. The only thing I have ruled out is mechanical failure. That means the perpetrator is either hijacker(s) or the pilot. I suppose, well, how can we even rule out any of the rest of the crew? What if there was a deranged crew member who managed to get some kind of weapon on the plane and took both pilots hostage? The sad thing is that because we don't have any answers, we can't rule anything out. And that leaves all of the crew and all of the passengers. And that is sad because of course most are victims of this tragedy, but we just don't know what is what in this case. We have no answers. It could have been the pilot. It could have been a hijacker in the disguise of a passenger. It could even have been another crew member. We don't know.
Thank you Derryn for your unique perspective and for all the insight into aviation and pilots. I never honestly knew it was so extremely difficult and cut-throat competition at the top, like pilots of 777's for commercial airliners. And I never understood fully the sacrifices these pilots make to get to where they are. Not just those pilots, but even pilots of crop-dusters, etc., like you were saying, they still are required certain number of flying hours, which they have to pay for.
JMO.
