A useful exchange of comments drawing together pros and cons of possible motives for disappearance of MH370, with current situation and known facts (not many). This comes from recent input at the pilots' forum where I've been lurking, and reading the now 5,000+ thread for several days.
By :"slats11"
1. Kidnap passengers as hostages? You would have to know that the pax (= passengers) were mostly Chinese and Malaysian. I can't imagine China would be keen to negotiate, nor to facilitate negotiations by the relatives. So this would seem a very poor choice of flight for this purpose.
2. Theft of cargo? For this to work, you would need accomplices and logistics at other end. This takes time to set up. How much notice would you have of an upcoming valuable shipment? Presumably not enough to get yourself onto that flight and organise the other end. Could it have been a spur of the moment opportunistic theft? Possibly. But the details we have suggest the reversal of course (and other things) was done very skilfully, and this suggests detailed planning. And you would still have to set up the other end. So theft seems unlikely.
3. Steal plane for some future terrorist plot? This is probably the most likely scenario for the "northern corridor." However, you would imagine the customer was most likely in the Middle East. You would also imagine the customer would like his plane stolen with the least chance of things going wrong. So why steal a plane heading east, and then have to reverse course and avoid radar of Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia etc? There are plenty of MAS flights from KL heading to Europe or Middle East. Why not steal one of these flights? You could even cross India (legally) and then disappear - which would give you much greater range (Pakistan or Iran). For ME terrorists, an added bonus of a Europe bound flight would be a greater number of westerners. Do we know if the crew flew other routes?
4. "Southern corridor" scenario. Hard to think of a reason other than suicide and disappear. If this happened, the guy didn't want anyone to know for sure - he could have left a note, or even come up on the radio and announced his intention. Nor did he want the plane found. Reverses course and possibly flies low to avoid primary radar - unlike the customer in option 3 who has nothing to gain by playing games with radar, it is possible the pilot here enjoys the challenge of defeating radar. He then heads NW up Straits of Malacca, before turning SW when he is sure he is out of primary radar coverage. Why turn NW first? Well he does not want to be found. If he is picked up by primary radar, heading NW he looks like lots of other traffic heading out of KL or Singapore. If he went immediately SW over Malaysia and then Sumatra, this would seem unusual if anyone did see him on primary radar.
From "OleOle"
Good assessment of possible motives. What's missing is
- something spontaneous
- something not going according to plan
- a change in plan.
My own thoughts: As things stand now, with my original Occam's Razor thoughts cancelled by what seems to be indisputable fact, i.e. that a radar signal from the (more or less) intact plane was received some 7 hours after last contact, now #3, above seems the most likely. #3 would not necessarily involve a customer from the Middle East, or if it did, then perhaps they were distracting, trying to avoid appearing obvious in not selecting an easier route?
This blog of pilot Mark L. Berry and radio broadcast by him is informative and fairly persuasive.
BLOG
BROADCAST
The best, if it can be so described, outcome from a rapidly darkening situation, would be for the families and loved ones to receive absolutely certain news, one way or the other. The terrible anguished "limbo" they are in at present has to be horrendously debilitating, causing harm to their own mental and physical health.
All very logical and possible. Heading one direction while still on radar and then dropping below and turning again is clever. I think I saw that in a movie once.
ReplyDeleteanyjazz ~ The whole situation has become uncomfortably similar to some Hollywood movie storyline. If it were on the silver screen though, many in the audience (including you, I bet, because you do it often) would say "that could never happen!".
ReplyDeleteIt seems incredulous that an aircraft can be lost and without a trace. I'm leaning more toward the conspiracy theories...LOL
ReplyDelete"The NORAD-U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) Command Center serves as a central collection and coordination facility for a worldwide system of sensors designed to provide the commander and the leadership of Canada and the U.S. with an accurate picture of any aerospace threat."
http://www.norad.mil/AboutNORAD/NORADHistory.aspx
"NORAD's mission is supported by the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center which collects data from a worldwide system of satellites, radars, and other sensors and processes that information in real-time."
http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/norad/background.html
mike ~ The fog thickens by the day. Only new development (if it is one) I've read this morning is that several inhabitants of a remote island of the Maldives report seeing a very low flying "jumbo jet" on the morning of 8 May. If to be believed that means the plane went south rather than northward. Less likely to be anything linked to terrorism I guess. But the plane might not have been MH370...it should be checkable whether any other large plane was due to be in that area at that time.
ReplyDeleteAnyway....a good summing up of the confused situation in the Guardian:
Michael Wolff in the Guardian yesterday .........
MH370 story is the new anti-journalism – all data, no real facts, endless theories
Free conspiracies are for sale, with cautious restraint that propels the absence of truth. But you’re still obsessed, aren’t you?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/17/malaysia-airlines-mh370-media-conspiracy-theories
The Oxford Astrologer with three other astrology links provided at the end of her post:
ReplyDeletehttp://oxford-astrologer.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-mystery-of-vanishing-airplane.html#more
mike ~ Thanks for the link. I'm wary of the astrology involved, other than to be absolutely certain that the event and susequent happenings are steeped in Neptune.
ReplyDeleteI didn't like the idea of looking into astrology at all at first, when it seemed certain the wreckage would be discovered. Things have changed, 10 days later.
I admire any astrologer brave enough, at this stage, to dive into the mass of variables, imponderables, red herrings etc. because astrology itself is full of the same imponderables......
:-/
"Missing Malaysia plane: 10 theories examined"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26609687
mike ~ Thanks - I think #3,or 8,9,10 are most likely. :-(
ReplyDeletenot to beat a dead horse but I found this and I wanted to share it with you....it's the most sane theory I've found out there
ReplyDeletehere
DC ~ Thanks for that link. I had read the piece before somewhere, and initially had thought that it was as good an explanation as any for the plane's disappearance. But, but, but - and as several pilots on the forum I've been reading daily pointed out - in the case of a fire bad enough to do the kind of damage needed for such action, how did the plane carry on flying until fuel ran out - taking it so very far, to where the huge search effort is now in progress? That doesn't fit! The fire would have eventually destroyed more and more and the plane would have crashed much sooner. It could
ReplyDeletehave done so, for all we know - but then how to account for the "pings" found by Inmarsat - these were "handshakes" with the plane's engine - still running for around 7 hours after it was lost to other radar?
There's something we are not being told, maybe for good reason, it's probably something nobody has yet thought of too, however unlikely that sounds.
:-)