I realize this doesn't have much to do with Wall Street, but rarely do we experience a mystery that has electrified the global community in the way missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370 has so I thought it would be worth a blog post to see what you guys think happened. I'm of two minds on this one: Occam's razor makes a crash the overwhelming statistical probability, but the possibility that the plane was stolen can't yet be ruled out. Thing is...how the hell do you evade radar, land a plane that size, and then hide a plane that size? And for what purpose? Here are a couple of videos debating both sides of the issue, but I'm really interested in what you guys think happened. Hell, even Courtney Love thinks she found this damn thing. Maybe we should get a poll going...
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I'm pretty sure of one thing only: that we do not have all the information that is actually there, i.e. somebody is deliberately holding something from the media. I'm not a conspirationist or anything, I think this is a sound course of action (for now) by the side of the military (ies?). They most likely have no clue of where the plane is, but they also have a clear idea of what happened to it, whether it was a hijacking, a crash, or some distressed bank that stole it to put it in their T1.
I say this because it reminds me a lot of the Ustica disaster (1980 north of Sicily). There they found the relic quite soon, but it took 27 years to get to a realistic reconstruction of the incident, right because too many people were trying to throw off tack the investigation.
This is conspiracy theorist, disclaimer or not. There is not a shred of evidence that something is being hidden from the public. Possible, sure. But probable? I wouldn't go that far just yet.
I personally have a less-than action movie worthy theory: some kind of equipment or electrical failure on the jet led to the navigation / tracking /autopilot /comm systems to malfunction and/or become disabled. The pilot turned around in a bid to manually land the craft, but wasn't able to find the airport (and potentially was unable to communicate for a landing anyway). The night time visibility wasn't helping either, so he flew low so as to not crash from 35000 feet high (incidentally avoiding radar).
Optimistic? Maybe.
Not probable as analog equipment would still help them determine their heading and with the maps carried on board any competent pilot could navigate decently close to an intended destination. Also flying low in a difficult to maneuver aircraft comes with the risk of crashing into something mid-air. An emergency landing from cruising altitude would be preferable to this.
Source: Some relatives are pilots.
As nda said, that doesn't mean they know where it is, but I'm fairly confident that there are people that have seen more evidence than you and Courtney Love. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that huge pieces of information have been held back, especially if foul play was involved. There are all sorts of tactical reasons not to tell your enemies everything you know.
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/your-malaysia-airlines-dissapeara…
A possible sequel in the making?
//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/F7v9ozrTkMI?rel=0
In all seriousness though I think the reason people are so hung up on this is because in this day in age where almost everything is available to us via the internet, not knowing something is unique and intriguing and frightening at the same time. In all probability it probably crashed into the ocean, but the fact that we DON'T know that for certain allows our imaginations to run wild. Then there's what exactly transpired on the plane to lead to it's disappearance. I bet you the second the plane in found it will be old news within 24 hours. Until then, theories will run abound.
This was discussed at length already... just sayin'.
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/your-malaysia-airlines-dissapeara…
I think there is a much less sensationalized explanation which the media is completely ignoring, despite the prevailing -- and at times vociferous -- opinion of pilots and avionic experts who have been stating from Day 1 that the most likely cause (~80%) of the disappearance was a banana in the tailpipe.
Snakes on a Plane
I’ve followed this story very closely, and I’m no conspiracy theorist but the more and more that comes out, the more and more likely I believe this was deliberate and some sort of foul play was involved. Here are some popular theories and the information I’ve gleamed: (1) There was an electrical fire in the cockpit that literally disabled everything besides the auto pilot which flew the plane over the Indian Ocean until it ran out of gas and crashed. I’ve heard several experts talk about this theory and it just doesn’t make sense to me. First, the timeline we have been given says there should have been at least 10 minutes for the pilots to make some sort of distress call, and they made nothing. Second, any pilot with a fire in the cockpit would have tried to land at the closest airport (if possible). Third, the odds that an electrical fire even happened are more remote than foul play in my opinion considering the Boeing 777 has only had 3 crashes in its history and all were do landing malfunctions not electrical fires. Finally, I’ve heard several experts say that the odds that a fire would disable literally everything besides just the auto pilot is extremely unlikely. People who believe the fire story seem to think that all the electrical communication and tracking were disabled by a fire but the fire didn’t disrupt the auto pilot for up to 8 hours (which we know the flight flew for)? (2) Pilot suicide. Some say the pilot flew the plane out into the middle of the Indian Ocean to commit suicide. Seems unlikely to me because there are easier ways to kill yourself without taking down a plane full of 200 people. Even if you wanted to kill yourself via a plane crash, why go through the trouble of flying for 8 extra hours? Why not crash it closely after takeoff? Even if this pilot wanted this elaborate death with this mystery, this theory seems unlikely to me because the one pilot who would have wanted to commit suicide likely would have to over -take or expel the other pilot and flight officer to accomplish this. I find this theory unlikely. (3) This plane was hijacked and eventually crashed. I think this is a decently likely theory. All of the deliberate and skilled actions lead me to believe this flight was either hijacked or foul play was involved by the pilots. What we know authorities believe: the transponders were manually turned off at a time where they were “switching” contacts with 2 different air traffic controllers. The flight “turn” was pre scheduled into the auto pilot system before the transponders were turned off (according to the NYT). We know the flight flew for up to 8 hours after the transponders were turned off. Both of the pilots were Islamic (although not described as radicals), and there were two Iranians with stolen passports on board. All of these actions seem planned out and deliberate to me. I think its possible there was some sort of plan that ended up wrong and now the plane crashed in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I’m starting to think this is more and more unlikely the longer we haven’t found anything especially considering the effort and satellites we have. (4) This plane was hijacked or foul play was involved and the pilots landed it somewhere. I actually think this is a realistic possibility. The pilot’s flight simulator in his home had flight simulations with landing areas on remote islands in the Indian Ocean without real airports and where he never flew to. Additionally, it has been shown that there was another plane of similar size on a flight through India that the Boeing 777 could have followed undetected and not appeared on radar allowing it to land somewhere in India, Pakistan or Kazakhstan. I thought this theory was extremely unlikely until you see that the US has cut back on its efforts in the Indian Ocean and according to at least one general has begun to investigate the possibility that the plane landed in Pakistan very seriously. I suppose the most likely motive for this theory is that the plane will be used for terrorism or less likely to hold hostages for some sort of ransom. (5) The plane went rouge and was shot down by some other country. I find this unlikely because we would have been able to spot more debris, and our there would have been a hot spot that would have shown up.
In short, I think there was some serious foul play involved and I think the investigators and the US government isn’t giving away all the information because they have an idea of where the plane is and don’t want to tip their hand. If its terrorism, the terrorists won’t want to claim credit until they finish using the plane for whatever it is they want. Whatever happened, I think the more and more we learn, the more and more likely this was some sort of conspiracy and not just an accident like a bunch of people seem to believe.
this story is being blown way out of proportion. this is probably what happened:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/
Just read this and agree. Most of what is known to have happened are well explained by this article. Electrical fires are a totally different animal compared with more traditional combustion and often the most dangerous consequence of them are noxious fumes.
His climb to above FL400 is a little suspect, but the decent can be explained by the desire to get into thicker, higher oxygen content air and vent the inside of the aircraft with the outside air. One thing worth asking, which I have not seen addressed in the media, are what kind of automatic fire suppression systems were in the electronics bay of the 777 and how they would have been actuated (most likely by some kind of automatic) system and how that actuation system may have failed.
Two things still concern me. First, most electrical systems of advanced aircraft are built with major redundancy where a specific electrical bus can be shut off (and electrical fires are often extinguished once electrical power is removed) without harming most, if not all, onboard systems. Second, why did the pilots not attempt to communicate the problem to the outside. In my opinion, they would most likely have had the capability and time to do so.
The divert field suggested by the article is the most likely choice they would have used. It has a nice long runway and is unencumbered by natural or artificial obstacles and appears well suited for a pilot to make a visual approach at night. This is a key consideration if they believed they would have had issues with their navigation equipment or degraded ability to make an instrument approach and landing. Remember, this all happened at night which adds a completely different dimension to the problem. Conversely, going to an unfamiliar field (unfamiliar meaning you have not flown in and out of there multiple times) is often not a good idea, either.
While I have no specific knowledge of the electrical system on the 777, I can say that I find it highly peculiar that they basically went into total blackout mode. Even with serious electrical problems, they should have been able to run a bare minimum of communication and navigation equipment on their emergency electrical bus. At least enough to communicate their problem to the outside world and to make a non-precision approach to the primary divert.
Also, is the 777 primarily fly-by-wire like all Airbus models? If the flight controls are dependent on electronic control (which is not the case with other, earlier Boeing models), the aircraft would become uncontrollable without at least a partially functioning electrical system. If not, the pilots may have been able to control and fly it as long as the (presumed) fire did not destroy the mechanical linkages between the control yoke and the flight control surfaces, and they had at least a partially functioning hydraulic system.
As I mentioned already, it disturbs me that the pilots did not make at least a perfunctory attempt to communicate they were having issues before they started pulling circuit breakers and disabling their ability to navigate or communicate. It takes about 5 seconds to squawk 7700 and transmit on the emergency frequency (121.5) what is going on before you start trying to troubleshoot.
All that being said, the Wired article is still the best explanation I have seen yet. When Air France 447 went down, I knew immediately what the exact cause was. It was actually pretty straightforward based on the information that was known at the time. The problem with this case is that so little is actually known and several conflicting reports (or reports with dubious reliability) have come out. Realistically, this mystery may never get solved....
This stuff happens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aerial_disappearances
I honestly don't know why this is A) being given so much air time and B) why it has captured the public imagination to this extent. People's reactions at this point seem to be something of a Rorschach test given there's not really a lot of info. I don't have an opinion yet, I'm just observing.
I thought you were the resident WSO conspiracy theorist. I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest.
Also, if you scan the number of missing persons on that list, it becomes immediately apparent why this one is such a big deal. Not to mention there have only been 5 instances since 1990.
It's a big deal, I didn't mean to imply it didn't matter. I'm just not sure why this is the focal story right now. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I try to get the real deal and to people drinking koolade it looks like a conspiracy sometimes. The real kooks seem to assign god like power of gov'ts to pull off conspiracies but then attribute them gross incompetence in most other areas, so there's typically a fundamental incongruity. Here, there's just not much info, in fact nothing: it just vanished and I'm as stumped as the next guy.
A conspiracy theorist would call this a media distraction and draw a link between media coverage of this and the fact that Russia is expanding their influence into Ukraine as of this morning. OR, they would point out that this recovered oil tanker was an op run by the Obama administration, using S.E.A.L. teams, to help out the Libyan government. It's ENTIRELY possible that the Obama administration made a phone call to CNN et al encouraging coverage to draw global focus off of sensitive developments in other areas. Or conversely, FOX news is covering this to take away attention off of the Libya thing, to undermine Obama, and the other networks are complicit. Anything is possible.
It's also possible that someone, somewhere, wanted to take out someone on that plane. There are far less conspicuous ways of doing so. If it was terrorism, why hasn't any group claimed responsibility? What happened to the days of Al Queda taking credit for stuff they didn't even do? It isn't terrorism without terror.
Any number of things is possible, I just don't have enough info to even speculate. That and I'm a bit busy lately, so not as much time to scrape every possible news outlet. Some of the theories above seem possible, others not so plausible, but right now I really don't have an opinion.
Sorry to disappoint :D I'm sure Alex Jones is going nuts with this though LOL
ALSO: my username isn't about UFO conspiracies. I work best from the 'inside' of networks, hence "insider". That and I feel like I'm on another planet compared to the tiny idiot village I came from, hence "UFO". There are probably aliens out there and if they know of us, well, I think this quote from Eminem sums up their sentiment towards humanity's intelligence as a whole: "Looking at the life on this planet, sir, no sign of it".
Can't wait for this one to be over. News outlets are full of extreme "what-ifs" being presented as "journalism".
Seriously - why are major outlets like CNN publishing what if stories? Isn't journalism about getting the facts out there?
MTV doesn't play music anymore, the 'news' doesn't really report anymore. Both now traffic in "narrative".
Just like to point out that while everybody is hyper-focused on this one missing plane, Putin is setting his sights on the Baltic States.
As long as the markets keep melting up nobody seems to care about Putin. We know Barry won't do shit to stop him.
I'm still not sure what the US or Obama are supposed to do. They want to use their democratic rights to vote them away by a 97% margin to rejoin the country they used to be a part of...let them. I'm pretty sure that Putin understands that we pretend to care but really don't, even even his own country's propoganda network saw staff resigning in protest of the shabby PR for this. As for invading states that don't want to be part of Russia, both the US and China have a problem with it. China wants Russia to sell them energy, and we can sell energy to the EU. In a way, the souring of relations with Russia really helps us, them, the Chinese, and the EU. It's almost like they planned it.
Honestly, I think the last administration got too close to Russia and now we're having the illusion broken. Russia was never an ally and we are limited in how much of their dysfunction we can hope to fix. I'd personally like to see a few F22's parked on the east Ukraine border, but there's really no need for machismo grandstanding or escalation....unless Russia does something really stupid. Putin is a very calculated person, I just don't see him working against his own interests.
Crimea is a pawn gambit.
Barry? Really?
What exactly do you suggest the US do about a situation half way across the world in which it has no direct interests? Or are you just grandstanding?
This for real?
http://news-hound.org/google-earth-finds-woman-trapped-on-deserted-isla…
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