Malaysian Airlines Plane Missing Over Vietnam

[Flashermac]

An MH370 theory that was simple, compelling and wrong

 

 

Ever since MH370 disappeared, experts and amateurs have been speculating about its fate

 

On Tuesday a "startlingly simple" theory explaining the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines jet began making the rounds on social media and among journalists interested in the story. According to a fellow named Chris Goodfellow, the plane caught fire, and the pilot headed to a nearby airport to save the craft, eventually crashing into the Indian Ocean.

 

Goodfellow originally posted his theory on his Google+ page on 14 March, but it picked up steam when it was reposted on the linking site Reddit. On Tuesday Wired magazine edited and ran the post under the headline A Startlingly Simple Theory about the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet.

 

Goodfellow, whom Wired identifies as having "20 years' experience as a Canadian Class-1 instrumented-rated pilot for multi-engine planes", begins with a dismissive wave toward the aviation experts who have been clogging the news networks.

 

"There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370," he writes. "Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; it's almost disturbing."

 

He says that he "tends to look for a simpler explanation".

 

He then theorises that a fire, possibly electrical or from an overheated tyre on take-off, sent smoke into the cockpit shortly after the crew signs off with Malaysian air traffic controllers.

 

The pilot executes a sharp left turn and heads for a nearby emergency landing spot, while turning off electronics - such as the transponder - in order to isolate the problem.

 

"Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time," he writes. "We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbour while in cruise."

 

A quick search of Google Earth gives Goodfellow a candidate: Pulau Langkawi.

 

"Surprisingly, none of the reporters, officials, or other pilots interviewed have looked at this from the pilot's viewpoint: If something went wrong, where would he go?" he writes. "Thanks to Google Earth I spotted Langkawi in about 30 seconds, zoomed in and saw how long the runway was and I just instinctively knew this pilot knew this airport."

 

All the pieces fit into place, he writes. The climb to 45,000ft? A last-ditch attempt to put out the fire. Where is the plane now? After the pilots were overcome by smoke, the plane continued on autopilot over Langkawi and headed west into the Indian Ocean, where it eventually ran out of fuel and crashed.

 

"Capt Zaharie Ahmad Shah was a hero struggling with an impossible situation trying to get that plane to Langkawi," he writes. "There is no doubt in my mind. That's the reason for the turn and direct route."

 

Goodfellow's theory continued to spread across media, both social and mainstream.

 

"I buy this new MH370 theory of an onboard fire," tweeted the New York Times's Josh Barro.

 

The theory "fits the facts" and "makes sense", writes Business Insider's Henry Blodget. "It requires no fantastically brilliant pre-planning or execution or motives."

 

The Atlantic's James Fallows agrees.

 

"I think there's doubt about everything concerning this flight. But his explanation makes better sense than anything else I've heard so far," he writes. "It's one of the few that make me think, Yes, I could see things happening that way."

 

Only it very likely didn't happen that way - as considerable information that was already in the public realm contradicts the story. By Tuesday evening, writers and commentators were picking Goodfellow's post apart.

 

"Goodfellow's account is emotionally compelling, and it is based on some of the most important facts that have been established so far," writes Jeff Wise in Slate. "And it is simple - to a fault."

 

"While it's true that MH370 did turn toward Langkawi and wound up overflying it, whoever was at the controls continued to manoeuvre after that point as well, turning sharply right at VAMPI waypoint, then left again at GIVAL," he says. "Such vigorous navigating would have been impossible for unconscious men."

 

And:

 

Goodfellow's theory fails further when one remembers the electronic ping detected by the Inmarsat satellite at 8:11 on the morning of March 8. According to analysis provided by the Malaysian and United States governments, the pings narrowed the location of MH370 at that moment to one of two arcs, one in Central Asia and the other in the southern Indian Ocean. As MH370 flew from its original course toward Langkawi, it was headed toward neither. Without human intervention - which would go against Goodfellow's theory - it simply could not have reached the position we know it attained at 8:11 a.m.

 

There still should have been a distress call, Greg Feith, a former National Transportation Safety Board crash investigator, told NBC News.

 

"Typically, with an electrical fire, you'll have smoke before you have fire," he said. "You can do some troubleshooting. And if the systems are still up and running, you can get off a mayday call" and pilots can put on an oxygen mask, Feith said.

 

Nine hours after its first article on the subject Business Insider ran a follow-up, with reaction from pilots.

 

Michael G Fortune, a retired pilot who flew 777-200ERs like the Malaysia plane, said it was unlikely the crew would have shut off the transponders to deal with the fire.

 

"The checklist I utilized for smoke and fumes in the B-777-200ER does not specifically address the transponder being turned off," he said.

 

Another 777 pilot told the website that putting on oxygen masks would have been the first priority for the crew, preventing them from being incapacitated.

 

As long as there is no definitive word about the fate of MH370, theories - from respected experts and amateurs relying on a hunch and a little help from Google Earth - will continue to bounce around the internet.

 

Some will catch on and go viral, until they are debunked or overtaken by new facts.

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/n...mbers-26640114

[Specialist]

An electrical fire in the cockpit would be one thing. The problem is that Boeing and the airlines understand, in detail, just how bad that would be, and put a LOT of engineering and maintenance into making sure that (1) it doesn't happen and (2) the fire can be fought, effectively.

 

A nosewheel fire raises an obvious question. The Boeing 777 is pressurized. The nosewheel, having to make contact with the runway in order to do its job, is OUTSIDE of the pressure hull. How does the smoke get from OUTSIDE the pressure hull to INSIDE the pressure hull?

 

Also note that a nosewheel fire would start during or immediately after takeoff, and be detected immediately as low tire pressure and/or hot brake, BOTH of which are reported on the cockpit EICAS display. Instead, he postulates that the nosewheel fire doesn't get going until the airplane is at cruising altitude, where the air is dam' thin, instead of down close to the ground where there's lots more oxygen per cubic centimeter to support combustion.

 

Dezinformatsiya, anyone?

[Coss]

Quite, many theories, no winners yet.

 

My only thoughts are that if it was terrorist or suicide or another intentional reason, whomsoever did it would have said something, left a note, whatever.

 

In the apparent absence of this communication, it would likely be accidental, but then there's all that manoeuvring - so - still a mystery.

[Flashermac]

When last seen on radar, the plane was heading northwest from Penang. Now they are looking for it far to the south ... to the west Australia.

 

Just what the aitch did happen?

[bust]

Was Tony Bullimore on the passenger list?

[Specialist]

Flash, if any of the people who know what happened to that airplane are still alive, they are not talking.

[huumlaar]

Bust bust bust, good one

[waerth]

Andrew RC Marshall â€@Journotopia 1m

Malaysian PM Najib Razak announces "with deep sadness . . . that flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."

 

Florian Witulski â€@vaitor 1m

Najib: Satellite analysis shows Malaysia Airlines plane's last position was west of Perth, Australia

[Flashermac]

Missing plane lost, Malaysia says

 

 

Malaysia's prime minister has announced on the basis of new analysis it must be concluded that missing flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean.

 

He said Malaysia Airlines had told the families of the 239 people on board.

 

Earlier the BBC saw a text message sent to families saying it had to be assumed "beyond reasonable doubt" that the plane was lost and there were no survivors.

 

Flight MH370 went missing after taking off on 8 March.

 

The announcement by PM Najib Razak came on the fifth day of an international search effort in the southern Indian Ocean.

 

Based on new analysis, the UK's Air Accidents Investigation Branch and Inmarsat, the UK company that provided satellite data, "have concluded that MH370 flew along the southern corridor, and that its last position was in the middle of the Indian Ocean, west of Perth," he said.

 

"This is a remote location, far from any possible landing sites. It is therefore with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that, according to this new data, flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean."

 

 

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26716572

[Coss]

MH370 Search Planes Spot Floating Rohingya Refugees, Dismiss As “Unrelated Debrisâ€

28 Mar 2014

 

SOUTH INDIAN OCEAN – The ongoing saga of locating Malaysia Airlines flight 370 took another disappointing turn today as search planes discovered that many of the large objects seen by satellites were just floating rafts full of Rohingya refugees.

At approximately 8am this morning Perth time, a US navy P8 aircraft passed over what initially appeared to be a large floating object, the first human contact with a possible piece of the missing Boeing 777 jet, which vanished from radar on March 8. However, once the plane got close enough, the pilots realized that the object was in fact several hundred starving, dehydrated, stateless persons waving from large pontoon.

“Disappointment†as mysterious object at sea revealed to be unwanted humans

“It’s disappointing that we didn’t find any wreckage, but we’re determined to keep looking,†said Lt Commander Adam Shantz. “There’s a lot of unrelated debris floating in the ocean, and we knew that from the start.â€

The US navy reported that while there were some corpses floating in the sea nearby the raft, it was assumed that the bodies were Rohingyas, and therefore of no interest to the search effort, or to any of the 25 nations involved. Once it was established that the refugees were unrelated to flight MH370, the navy plane flew on and headed towards other coordinates that matched promising satellite data.

“We don’t want to waste any resources, not even for an hour,†added Shantz. “People are depending on us.â€

The news was shared with the grieving families of the missing passengers at a news conference.

“We are saddened to report that some of the satellite photos provided by the French authorities turned out to be several hundred living persons who are not material to our investigation, rather than dead persons who might be,†said Malaysia’s acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein. “However, with every lead eliminated, we are in fact narrowing our search field and hope to recover a piece of the plane soon.â€

With grieving family members already initiating lawsuits against the Malaysian government, which they accuse of withholding key information, and with the Chinese state demanding access to all data used in the investigation, pressure is mounting on the Malaysians to come up with at least a single confirmed piece of the actual wreckage to verify their conviction that the plane crashed in the south Indian Ocean.

Many family members expressed anger at the discovery of the floating Rohingya refugees.

“If these satellite images can’t tell the difference between our loved ones and these dark-skinned people, then the technology is suspect,†said one woman whose husband was aboard flight 370. “The ocean could be full of floating refugees. We could be chasing phantoms for weeks.â€

According to oceanographer Martin Teel, the south Indian Ocean contains several areas known as “gyres,†or swirling eddies of currents where garbage and other items disposed of by human society end up, floating in endless circles indefinitely.

A closer look at the ocean debris, which is of no value to investigators, families, governments, or media

“It’s not surprising that these Rohingyas appeared on satellite images, causing confusion to the search efforts,†he said. “From what I understand, they have been thrown out of Bangladesh, Burma, and Thailand already. They’re exactly the kind of detritus that ends up in international waters.â€

“The solution going forward is clear,†he added. “Stop disposing of refugees at sea. That’s no way to treat our oceans.â€

Despite the setback, the Malaysian government expressed confidence that the combined efforts and assets of the searching nations would soon find something of value.

“A piece of wing, a life jacket, even a floating body,†said one official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the investigation. “We know that it’s out there, and we can’t let any distractions prevent us from focusing on what’s important.â€

No Rohingyas were available for comment.

 

 

http://notthenation.com/2014/03/mh370-search-planes-spot-floating-rohingya-refugees-dismiss-as-unrelated-debris/