....But in battalions

When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalions.
(From Shakespeare's Hamlet)

Two more plane crash tragedies - what is going on?

A Transasia Airlines ATR-72 down in Taiwan with around 50 passengers/crew lost, reportedly amid heavy rains.
(See here.)
And a plane of a Spanish/Algerian Airline now lost over Mali, en route to Algeria from Burkina Faso. The plane disappeared from radar early Thursday after heavy rains were reported, according to the plane’s owner and government officials in France and Burkina Faso. 110 crew and 6 passengers are so far unaccounted for. (See here)

It seems pointless to offer heartfelt condolences to all relatives, surviving passengers and loved ones affected in these, and the previous two major losses involving Malaysian Airlines (MH370 and MH17), nobody involved will ever read this, but I simply wish to put such thoughts into the ether in these dark, dark circumstances for so many.

Another Air Tragedy

Another air tragedy - and so soon after the still unsolved MH370 mystery. Today's crash also involved Malaysian Airlines.

A Malaysian airliner reportedly with 295 people on board has crashed in Ukraine near the Russian border, on a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. It has been reported that it appears to have been shot down by a surface to air missile, possibly mistakenly.

According to a Reuters correspondent: from The Guardian,

Dozens of bodies were scattered around the smouldering wreckage of a passenger jet that crashed in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, a Reuters reporter said.

An emergency services rescue worker said at least 100 bodies had so far been found at the scene, near the village of Grabovo, and that debris from the wreckage was scattered across an area up to about 15km (nine miles) in diameter.

Broken pieces of the wings were marked with blue and red paint – the same colours as the emblem of the Malaysian airline which lost track of a flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was carrying almost 300 people.

That website is being updated rapidly.

Thoughts and sincere sympathies go out to relatives and loved ones of passengers and crew of MH17.


UPDATE
Malaysia Airlines report that there were 173 Dutch, 44 Malaysian (including 15 crew and 2 infants),
27 Australian, 12 Indonesian (including 1 infant), 9 United Kingdom, 4 Germany, 4 Belgium, 3 Philippines, 1 New Zealand, and 1 Canadian residents on board.

20 passengers’ nationalities are unknown. There were reportedly some Americans on board who could have boarded with passport other than USA's (dual citizens).

Lost Plane

At time of writing this, late yesterday afternoon, no concrete information on the fate of Malaysian airlines Flight MH370, lost since Saturday/Sunday, had emerged. First thoughts now go to relatives and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew, still waiting in dread for what is almost certainly going to be the worst kind of news.

I've been following comments on a professional pilots' forum in the Rumours and News section. At least there, I suspect one has a better chance of commenters who actually know what they are talking about.

Astrology, at a time like this, always seems to me as akin to ambulance chasing, so I'll leave that alone.

Using Occam's Razor (simplest answer is usually the best one), I'd rely on the theory that some electronic/electrical fault in the flight's instruments, including the facility for pilot communication with ground staff, meant that the the pilot decided not to follow the plane's set route, while remaining unable to communicate the fault, decided to turn back and head for some place safe to land. After that, Occam's Razor becomes blunter...Did the original fault spread to other controls, maybe oxygen supply was cut off, so that the plane ditched and crashed either in an area of sea where full search has yet to be carried out, or in a jungle area of land?

Update: Recent news reports, though, indicate Malaysian military is now back-tracking on an earlier statement that it appeared the plane had altered course. All is confusion!

With technology at such an advanced level these days, it seems unlikely that a huge airliner could be allowed to simply disappear. Let us hope that efforts to produce new safeguards for ground communication methods in future airliners will be adopted.

As Martin Robbins wrote, in finishing his piece Cutting Through the Bullshit Surrounding Flight MH370

The irony is that, buried in this avalanche of speculation, there are some really interesting stories that have been largely ignored. How is it, for example, that for all the supposed increases in airline security in the wake of 9/11, checks at airports are so bad that people with stolen passports can apparently travel at will? And why is it that in an era of high speed 4G broadband, when 40-year-old technology can transmit data back from beyond the edge of the solar system, we still have to send ships and divers to retrieve data from a plane, rather than simply transmitting it in real time?

LATER: This article by Vijandren Ramadass has the best theory I've seen so far.

I'm not going to mention astrology again, other than to say that this situation is reflecting the worst side of Neptune.