Malaysia airlines plane may have crashed 239 people on board #2

[JerseyGirl]

It sounds like your experience is more recent than mine, but when I traveled abroad, all sorts of people took my passport--customs officers on moving trains, innkeepers (overnight), rental agents, etc. Frankly, I was pretty shocked. (I'm talking about Western Europe and the Balkans.)

Giving Passports to Others
Make copies before you go. In some countries hotels are required to keep photocopies of your passport, if you don't want to trust hotel staff with your passport, e.g. if staff have to leave the hotel premises to make a copy, you will be able to provide your own - no need to be overly paranoid, but having staff run across town with a passport worth more than they make in a year, to find the only Xerox in town, might prove too tempting for some people. In any case you should never hand over your passport as a security or guarantee under any circumstances, except as required by law or as a condition of release on bail. Ask for the copy back when done with that vendor.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Passport

 

[belimom]

Here's another photo, although I can't find a larger one at the moment. They really don't look like

Mario Balotelli.​

http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/art...ATES/s298/Malaysian-Plane-Mystery-3228638.jpg

 

[Nova]

Thanks for the passport tips, guys. The other time I've been asked to surrender my passport briefly has been when traveling with an organized tour. The tour guide collected everyone's passport and then dealt with customs and the like. (In such instances, my passport wasn't really out of my sight, though I can't claim I kept my eye on it at all times.)

 

[ScarlettScarpetta]

Is tomnod still working for anyone?

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Giving Passports to Others
Make copies before you go. In some countries hotels are required to keep photocopies of your passport, if you don't want to trust hotel staff with your passport, e.g. if staff have to leave the hotel premises to make a copy, you will be able to provide your own - no need to be overly paranoid, but having staff run across town with a passport worth more than they make in a year, to find the only Xerox in town, might prove too tempting for some people. In any case you should never hand over your passport as a security or guarantee under any circumstances, except as required by law or as a condition of release on bail. Ask for the copy back when done with that vendor.

http://wikitravel.org/en/Passport

Common sense to make copies. When I went travelling I got a dozen copies of mine and hubbys passports and also scanned them to hotmail in case of loss/accident etc. We left a copy at our home, with both sets of parents, scanned to hotmail, and put a copy in every bag we took. The rest were indeed handed to hotels that wanted copies. Always a good idea to scan your passports, ticket info and insurance documents to an email address that can be picked up anywhere in the world.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Here's another photo, although I can't find a larger one at the moment. They really don't look like

Mario Balotelli.​

http://i1.mirror.co.uk/incoming/art...ATES/s298/Malaysian-Plane-Mystery-3228638.jpg

So they definitely knew each other. Do we think this was taken at the airport with the friends they stayed with in KL?

 

[ScarlettScarpetta]

Common sense to make copies. When I went travelling I got a dozen copies of mine and hubbys passports and also scanned them to hotmail in case of loss/accident etc. We left a copy at our home, with both sets of parents, scanned to hotmail, and put a copy in every bag we took. The rest were indeed handed to hotels that wanted copies. Always a good idea to scan your passports, ticket info and insurance documents to an email address that can be picked up anywhere in the world.

LOL.. I am glad to meet another person like me. I am like this with most important things.

 

[JerseyGirl]

The US has reviewed imagery from spy satellites for any glimpse of a mid-air explosion, without success.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ijacking-sabotage-passengers-problems-concern

 

[JerseyGirl]

So they definitely knew each other. Do we think this was taken at the airport with the friends they stayed with in KL?

They are wearing the same outfits as they were when they boarded the plane, so this picture may have been taken earlier in the day. Maybe they just met.

 

[Softail]

Experts weigh in on Missing Flight 370


video at link:
http://www.today.com/video/today/54641918#54641918

 

[sherlockh]

Source: both http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/11/us-malaysiaairlines-flight-idUSBREA2701720140311

So it went the other way but they let everybody search the South China Sea for days? What a waste. I wonder if it crossed Indonesia as well. Could get very difficult to find.

 

[JerseyGirl]

Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Malaysian civil aviation chief, said earlier that the widened search includes northern parts of the Malacca Strait, on the opposite side of the Malay Peninsula and far west of the plane's last known location.

Mr Azharuddin would not explain why crews were searching there, saying rather cryptically, "There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can't."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-plane-crash-live.html

what??? :banghead:

 

[CoverMeCagney]

They are wearing the same outfits as they were when they boarded the plane, so this picture may have been taken earlier in the day. Maybe they just met.

Someone quoted earlier on that they had flown from Thailand to Malaysia on their Iranian passports. Looking more and more like two "innocent" refugees rather than terrorists (we'll overlook the stolen passports bit for now, seems commonplace though obvs not condoning it!). Not to say there weren't any REAL terrorists on board.

I'm really troubled by the black box thing, that has to be the biggest mystery of all this. Planes malfunction, they crash, they explode, they fall into the sea.... but black boxes are designed to withstand any of that and I just do not understand why they're not pinging their location. Thats' the strangest bit to me. Anyone got a brainwave??

 

[popsicle]

So it went the other way but they let everybody search the South China Sea for days? What a waste. I wonder if it crossed Indonesia as well. Could get very difficult to find.

jmo but I think the plane was hijacked, transponder turned off, dropped below radar, turned around and ended up crashing. It has taken them this long to put those pieces together to figure that out.

 

[Max17]

Mr Azharuddin would not explain why crews were searching there, saying rather cryptically, "There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can't."

what??? :banghead:

That's what LE usually says about a missing person in Websleuths Missing Forum Discussion section. This is a freaking Boeing 777! :facepalm:

 

[popsicle]

Someone on CNN over the weekend did say if the black box gets caught up in the fuselage when it crashes it will muffle the signal. iirc

 

[belimom]

Someone quoted earlier on that they had flown from Thailand to Malaysia on their Iranian passports. Looking more and more like two "innocent" refugees rather than terrorists (we'll overlook the stolen passports bit for now, seems commonplace though obvs not condoning it!). Not to say there weren't any REAL terrorists on board.

I'm really troubled by the black box thing, that has to be the biggest mystery of all this. Planes malfunction, they crash, they explode, they fall into the sea.... but black boxes are designed to withstand any of that and I just do not understand why they're not pinging their location. Thats' the strangest bit to me. Anyone got a brainwave??

bbm

So they had working passports. They weren't being held against their will. They were not in Iran. If not terrorists, then they weren't on a 'no fly' list. Why the fake passports, then? That's alot of money and alot of risk --- unless for a good reason.

Doesn't smuggling usually mean someone needs to get out of somewhere on a fake passport so no one knows they left? If these two are starting over a new life somewhere, then why not wait and try the passports out elsewhere? It doesn't add up to me. I guess Interpol obviously knows more than we do at this point, but I can't wrap my mind around the bits that we do know.

 

[CoverMeCagney]

Thoughts and ramblings by me:

If the plane was at 35,000ft, how far would it have to drop to fall "below radar" and, if that's what happened would the pilot have time to relay that info? And how frequently does aircraft location get picked up, every minute, every 10 mins, or is it constant?

EDIT: below radar is 29,000ft and the missing plane should have pinged it's location once per minute

Could one of the pilots have overpowered the other and switched off the transponder? Could a hijacker have done the same? Would ground radar or satellite still have sight of the plane if the transponder was off?

EDIT: over water there is not always available ground radar. Therefore if the transponder was off there'd be no further locations by radar until it went back into a radar zone (forgive my terminology!)

Finally. Is it plausible whatsover that the plane crash landed onto water and then sank after some time (in one piece)? That would explain the lack of debris. If that's not plausible then why are we given life jackets and instructions about emergency slides?

 

[belimom]

Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Malaysian civil aviation chief, said earlier that the widened search includes northern parts of the Malacca Strait, on the opposite side of the Malay Peninsula and far west of the plane's last known location.

Mr Azharuddin would not explain why crews were searching there, saying rather cryptically, "There are some things that I can tell you and some things that I can't."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-plane-crash-live.html

what??? :banghead:

How did the plane disappear from radar on one side of Malaysia, and then end up hundreds of miles away on the other side of Malaysia?

Even if the transponder went off (unlikely, but...), seems like the plane would be visible on radar.


???

 

[JerseyGirl]

bbm

So they had working passports. They weren't being held against their will. They were not in Iran. If not terrorists, then they weren't on a 'no fly' list. Why the fake passports, then? That's alot of money and alot of risk --- unless for a good reason.

... Iranians seeking asylum in Europe

the two men had traveled to Malaysia from Tehran using Iranian passports, but had secured stolen Italian and Austrian passports in Kuala Lumpur for their journey to Beijing and Amsterdam, for which both had tickets and planned to travel together.

Nourmohammadi planned to proceed from Amsterdam to Frankfurt, Germany, where his mother lives. The woman contacted authorities when her son failed to arrive as planned. The BBC reported that Seyedmohammaderza's intended final destination was Copenhagen, Denmark.

a friend of both men who hosted them at his home in Kuala Lumpur as they prepared to travel to Beijing, the final destination of the missing plane.

It was not made immediately clear how the passports were sent from Thailand to Kuala Lumpur.

it is not uncommon for Iranians to travel to and from Malaysia, or to buy one-way tickets through third parties. They said the fact that the man believed to have purchased the tickets on behalf of two Iranians traveling with stolen passports seemed to be seeking the cheapest fares within a range of dates does not jibe with typical terrorism plots. The sources familiar with Iranian travel patterns also said use of stolen passports is common for those involved in the drug trade, those wanting to study or work abroad and even Iranians who seek political, religious or social refuge.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/0...n-passports-on-malaysia-airlines-flight-were/