Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 missing

I am extremely shocked by this news. As a commercial aviation fan all I have to say is that I hope this event turns out fine, and at least some people survived this huge tragedy. However, with all the updates so far I only have a very dim hope remaining that anybody have survived. Prayers that this would not be like Air France 447 which was lost over the Atlantic.

Reports that the Vietnamese navy has found the wreckage.

First priority: they need to find the "black boxes." Very important because they can tell if something catastrophic happened right before the plane crashed.

SactoGuy18 said:

First priority: they need to find the "black boxes." Very important because they can tell if something catastrophic happened right before the plane crashed.

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For a plane to lose contact at cruising altitude something had to of been catastrophic.

Fox News says the last signal from the airplane was found. The signal came from a point that is located in the South China Sea, 120 miles southwest of Ca Mau.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/03/08/vietnam-detects-last-signal-from-missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-off/

maxwelltech said:

I am extremely shocked by this news. As a commercial aviation fan all I have to say is that I hope this event turns out fine, and at least some people survived this huge tragedy. However, with all the updates so far I only have a very dim hope remaining that anybody have survived. Prayers that this would not be like Air France 447 which was lost over the Atlantic.

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Unfortunately, it appears to be so, though one can only speculate on the cause right now.

MAS370 was found to have crashed into the South China Sea.

http://www.frequentbusinesstraveler...aysia-airlines-flight-crashed-into-the-ocean/

FlightAware has a lot of info on it as well:

http://flightaware.com/squawks/link...Beijing_lost_contact_with_air_traffic_control

LiveATC has a thread on it that I started as well:

http://www.liveatc.net/forums/aviat...orts-atc-loses-contact-with-mas370-wmkk-zbaa/

From what we have, here's the breakdown of the passengers:

• China – 152 plus 1 infant
• Malaysia - 38
• Indonesia - 12
• Australia - 7
• France - 3
• United States of America – 3 pax plus 1 infant
• New Zealand - 2
• Ukraine - 2
• Canada - 2
• Russia - 1
• Italy - 1
• Taiwan - 1
• Netherlands - 1
• Austria - 1

Hopefully there are some survivors, though I would liken this to a warmer, equatorial version of Titanic when it comes to people finding something to float with. And hopefully the waters aren't shark-friendly. Most of all, while I feel for all of the passengers, the infants break my heart.

BL.

bradl said:

UHopefully there are some survivors, though I would liken this to a warmer, equatorial version of Titanic when it comes to people finding something to float with. And hopefully the waters aren't shark-friendly. Most of all, while I feel for all of the passengers, the infants break my heart.

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I would very, very much hope that there would be survivors out there, but it has been 12 hours since the time of last contact. They had still not been able to find the wreckage which means that anybody who was still alive at the time of crash is most likely dead. I just hope for a miracle that a nearby fishing boat would rescue the survivors that had came out...

This accident really reminds us of how fragile life could be, and how unthinkable events could absolutely happen to anyone of us at any time. My dad was on a Malaysian Airlines flight also from Kuala Lumpur to China (Shanghai) the day before this tragic event

SactoGuy18 said:

First priority: they need to find the "black boxes." Very important because they can tell if something catastrophic happened right before the plane crashed.

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It took them 2 years to find the black boxes for AF447. These waters are not nearly as deep as the Atlantic Ocean though, but a crash in the seas is still much harder to manage than a crash on land.

Oil slicks have been spotted. Hopefully, they will be able to find some survivors.

Vietnamese air force planes on Saturday spotted two large oil slicks in the area where the plane vanished in the first sign that the aircraft carrying 239 people on board, including two infants and 12 crew members, had crashed.

The slicks were each between 6 miles and 9 miles long. There was no confirmation that the slicks were related to the missing plane, but the statement said they were consistent with the kinds that would be produced by the two fuel tanks of a crashed jetliner.

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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/0...-loses-contact-with-plane-carrying-23-people/

Its so sad, this catastrophic event....

Scepticalscribe said:

Some rather odd reports about passports coming in.

At least two individuals, (one French and one Austrian) who have been reported 'missing' (i.e. as passengers on board the plane), have contacted their embassies to point out that they are, in fact, alive. However, each of these two people had reported their passports stolen in Thailand, over the last two years, and this appears to have given rise to to the confusion.

The other slightly strange thing is that no distress call appears to have been received (or sent).

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Which either leads to inflight breakup, or … who knows. Either way, no 7500 was squawked, so one can only speculate.

I'm withholding anything conspiracy related until facts start to surface (no pun intended).

BL.

bradl said:

Which either leads to inflight breakup, or … who knows. Either way, no 7500 was squawked, so one can only speculate.

I'm withholding anything conspiracy related until facts start to surface (no pun intended).

BL.

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I agree completely.

Actually, I was rather surprised to read the story about the passengers listed as missing, based on their passports, (which, in two cases, have since been queried as the passports in question had been reported as stolen) as, initially, I had assumed that this was simply another airline tragedy (and this, from an airline which has actually had a pretty good safety record). Of course this is a monumental tragedy, and we won't know the details of what may have happened for some time.

No, I am not assuming any sort of conspiracy theory, merely flagging something which I regard as rather curious, which has been reported in some western European media sources which I normally view with some respect.

Scepticalscribe said:

I agree completely.

Actually, I was rather surprised to read the story about the passengers listed as missing, based on their passports, (which, in two cases, have since been queried as the passports in question had been reported as stolen) as, initially, I had assumed that this was simply another airline tragedy (and this, from an airline which has actually had a pretty good safety record). Of course this is a monumental tragedy, and we won't know the details of what may have happened for some time.

No, I am not assuming any sort of conspiracy theory, merely flagging something which I regard as rather curious, which has been reported in some western European media sources which I normally view with some respect.

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Agreed. So for right now, the only parallels we may have in relation to other aviation incidents are:

• AFR447. Instruments caused a problem that lead to the flight's rapid descent into the Atlantic.
• CAL611. inflight breakup.
• MSR990. Pilot suicide.

Right now, no concrete evidence as to MAS370 having any of these, so we wait.

BL.

bradl said:

Agreed. So for right now, the only parallels we may have in relation to other aviation incidents are:

• AFR447. Instruments caused a problem that lead to the flight's rapid descent into the Atlantic.

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Just to throw in a bit more detail. The pitot tubes iced over causing the autopilot to disconnect. The pilots failed to react and put the plane in a stall from which they couldn't recover. Happened when they were flying thru weather.

This crash happened during clear weather so you're definitely right its unlikely to be similar to AF447.

• CAL611. inflight breakup.

Right now, no concrete evidence as to MAS370 having any of these, so we wait.

BL.

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This is what seems most plausible to me. A jet doesn't just disappear from 35,000 feet without even a distress signal unless something catastrophic happened.

Couple this with the reports of the last bit of data received showing the plane changing direction from 024 to 333 and losing altitude and some type of in-flight catastrophic failure seems like the most plausible, but it's all speculation.

The stolen passports being used to board the plane brings in more questions too.

I'm sure we'll find out more soon, but this is terribly sad.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, but I didn't see anyone else mention it either. The aircraft involved here had an incident on the ground back in 2012 in Shanghai where it collided with another plane and ripped part of the wingtip off. Wonder if it will be shown if this had any impact.

Is there a way to have information that is stored in the blackbox to be streamed real-time during the flight into a database that is only accessible by the two airports that airplane is leaving to and arriving at?

Since the blackbox is tough to destroy, if information that is coming out of there is cut off in real time, couldn't you assume that something serious happened?

quagmire said:

That was the case with AF447. It was transmitting data to Air France's operation facilities.

Not sure if Malaysia implemented a similar system. But right now everything is still limited to having a ground facility in the area. Even ADS-B equipment. There is a proposal called ADS-B Link Augmentation System which makes satellites mirrors to send aircraft data to the satellite and back to the ground facilities.

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Correct. And unfortunately, the person providing the LiveATC feed at WMKK doesn't have any equipment to monitor or track ADS-B. But if MAS was the one reporting that they couldn't find the flight, more than likely they do have such equipment.

BL.

Stolen passports used to board a flight that 'disappears' from the sky?

They are supposed to be cancelled, and reported to Interpol??

There is ongoing debate over whether the laws and society of Malaysia should reflect secular or Islamic principles.[67] - Wiki

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Smells.

This is why it's imperative we not only find the plane, but find the black boxes and find out what exactly happened during the last moments of the flight.

We have to find out if the boxes suddenly stopped recording data, which unfortunately raises the specter of a bomb (that was what the investigators of Pan Am Flight 103 found on the black boxes--both boxes stopped recording data right at the point the bomb went off), or if the boxes kept on recording data right up to the time of the crash.

quagmire said:

Identifying the people that used the stolen passports would also be extremely helpful. If they could identify them using security camera footage( hopefully the airport had adequate cameras) and link them to a terrorist group, then I would say a bomb is likely.

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From the impression I got flying through Kuala Lumpur before it seems to be a pretty modern airport so while I didn't notice a lot of visible cameras I'm sure they are there, and there are people reviewing the security footage to try to find out who was traveling on those stolen passports. It certainly seems suspicious that there happened to be two people on stolen passports on a plane that disappeared like that, but at the same time I don't think it's too likely to be terrorism since there hasn't been a group claiming responsibility like there usually is if terrorists pull something off.

My guess is whoever was travelling on those passports were doing something illegal that made them want to hide their identities, but probably not terrorism.