Talisker wrote: Can I get the views on the experts who have so far contributed to the discussion on this topic - how would it be possible for the so far unidentified pilot/hijacker to crash the plane into the remote ocean (if this is what happened) without leaving any trace (other than the disputed pings about which you have written....)? If the plane was deliberately nosedived perpendicularly into the ocean would it likely break up and parts resurface, or would it break up and sink, or would it remain relatively intact upon impact with the ocean surface, reach a great depth (after all, the plane is designed to be aero-, and therefore presumably by implication hydro-dynamic), but at depth would crack under pressure, fill with water and sink (but without releasing a lot of flotsam and jetsam)? Or, assuming the pilot/hijacker had killed everyone beforehand by depressurization at high altitude, would it be possible to fly to the far reaches of the ocean, and ditch in the ocean swell such that the plane remained intact, and then scuttle it (bearing in mind that this would be far more challenging, due to the ocean swell, than the River Hudson landing referred to in other posts)?
All the experts are currently baffled. There is hardly any logic and it is unprecedented. Whilst the Malaysians made some bad errors in the beginning which did not help, there are really not many answers at the moment as far as we know. Now many people will make accusations of a cover up but in all honesty, what do you want them to say? They have theories and probable causes but can they prove anything? Probably not.
If the aircraft was nosedived into the ocean then it would most certainly break up. It is possible that the aircraft was miraculously ditched nicely and at very slow speeds just before the stall provided there was no swell. Why would a suicidal person or terrorist do that is something that is really unknown. They would also have to be incredibly skilled to pull it off and extremely "lucky" (if that is the right term).
In my opinion, there are debris somewhere in the Indian Ocean. It could even be in the Southern Ocean in which case they would end up in the Tasman by now. The problem with MH370 is that in the beginning, the whole thing was bungled or mishandled by the Malaysians and not only. There are reports that the Malaysian Military even detected the aircraft with Primary Radar and was not flagged while the entire world was looking for MH370 in the South China Sea wasting precious time. Even Thailand detected the aircraft and revealed this some 7 days later. Valuable time was lost. Now after more than 40 days it is unlikely any debris will be found except by pure fluke. Maybe one day some debris will eventually be found by fluke.
The JACC is really not confident at all in finding any debris. They want to call this part of their operations off!
They are a lot more confident about the search on the ocean floor that they are about the prospect of finding debris on the surface. if they do not find MH370 in the areas where they detected signals consistent with a Black Box, then the possibility that MH370 will never be found is very real. It is the final hope.
They could as I mentioned earlier expand their search along the Inmarsat Handshake Arc. Incredibly expensive and painstaking and probably futile as well, but that is still the only information they have which they can go by - and to fully search this arc will take a few years.
Talisker wrote:It seems to me that terrorism (if that is what this is) comes in many forms - 9/11 was shocking in so many ways - the images of the planes crashing into the twin towers, the human drama we all witnessed so publically, the death toll, etc. Whereas, if the disappearance of MH370 was a terrorist act, it could be one where the terrorists want to cause fear through the very mystery of the complete disappearance of the plane and its occupants. And whoever was responsible planned for the disappearance to be as absolute as possible, keeping this in the public eye for a considerable period of time by so doing.
Terrorism has not been ruled out. Even so, if the pilots were not involved, this terrorist was an extremely well trained one. They would have had excellent knowledge about all the systems on a B777 aircraft. They knew how things work. There were a lot of deliberate actions made on the aircraft. Transponders were turned off, there were altitude changes, and heading changes. The terrorist also had knowledge of way-points, could select them in the Flight Management Computer, and could operate the Auto Pilot, maintain altitudes and headings. Certainly not your typical terrorist. If they somehow pulled off a ditching similar to US Airways in the Hudson, then you would have to say the terrorist is a rather accomplished and skilled pilot as well.
But that's not all!
The terrorist even disabled ACARS. How did they do this? Well, no pilot can easily do such a thing. There is no ACARS off switch. Why would there be? Think about it.
The person who did it, must have climbed down into the NAV Bay and popped the circuit breaker for the datalink. Most pilots would even have to look very hard for it. So the terrorist had very intricate knowledge about the aircraft and must have meticulously planned the whole thing.
This is certainly one hell of a terrorist!
