MH 370

[Minimalist]

Doesn't seem to have stopped anyone from reaching the conclusion that it was an intentional act by the pilot, though.

[Anomalocaris]

I believe that plane was carrying lithium-ion batteries as cargo - something it would be illegal to do in the US on a passenger flight. A fire makes the most sense to me. Some investigator put together a fire scenario that explained all the observed happenings. I read it over two years ago but I don't remember the source.

I remember reading that too. It was before the info came out that the plane headed south, though. Once we found out it headed south and flew for another 6 hours, the fire scenario didn't make sense anymore.

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That seems like a pretty forlorn hope.

Apparently not, as its been 4 years and we still haven't found the damn thing. Another huge search just ended today. No clues.

We did find wreckages, so alien abduction and the southern Indian Ocean triangle each lost some credibility. We could have found more informative wreckage, but what’s point of squelching conspiracy theories?

[ignoramus]

I blame the Russians!

[Anomalocaris]

I blame the Russians!

As luck would have it, the very next Malaysian airlines passenger aircraft, and the very next Boeing 777 of any livery, to be lost was lost to......., yes, a Russian missile.

It was blown out of the sky while on a regularly scheduled flight on its regular flight path inside a well recognized international commercial air traffic corridor over Ukraine by a missile of from a Russian army air defence brigade apparently supplied to Russian separatists in Ukraine.

[AFTT47]

I believe that plane was carrying lithium-ion batteries as cargo - something it would be illegal to do in the US on a passenger flight. A fire makes the most sense to me. Some investigator put together a fire scenario that explained all the observed happenings. I read it over two years ago but I don't remember the source.

I remember reading that too. It was before the info came out that the plane headed south, though. Once we found out it headed south and flew for another 6 hours, the fire scenario didn't make sense anymore.

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That seems like a pretty forlorn hope.

Apparently not, as its been 4 years and we still haven't found the damn thing. Another huge search just ended today. No clues.

Actually, the one I read took the southern turn into account.

After watching your 60 Minutes videos though, I agree that it's hard not to conclude that the plane was landed - not spiraled out of control. The Canadian investigator makes several points that seen inescapable:

The flaparon was deployed. It is the only way to explain the damage along the trailing edge.

The piece would not even exist had the plane hit the ocean at the supersonic speed it would have been going had it fallen out of the sky un-piloted.

A high-speed crash would have left hundreds of flotation devices which bear the identification of the aircraft. It's inconceivable that not a one has washed ashore by now.

The fact that the pilot had a very similar flight plan in his simulator and deleted it is hard to swallow as a coincidence.

[Catholic_Lady]

Oh, ok. I hadn't read that one then. The one I read was only a few days after the plane went missing, before they knew about the plane going south. I'll have to search for it.

And yeah, I agree with the rest of what you said. I didn't want to believe the pilot would do this, but seems pretty obvious he did.

[Anomalocaris]

The plane would never have gone supersonic. If it ran out of fuel it would glide itself into the sea. Very few of the debris from a plane crash wreckage would remain afloat for more than a few weeks. If the plane broke up on impact, the floating debris field will disperse in a week or two and will almost completely disappear in a few weeks to a few months. It would not surprise me at all if, because the exact location of the crash was not pin pointed for some time, and there were not any nearby beach’s for the debris to wash onto before they had time to sink, that no visual contact with any floating debris was made.

I heard the contention that flapperon fragment show it hit water while deployed. But that was shortly after the fragment was first found and I believe was given more as a hypothetical thing indicating what can be learned from one such fragment. I heard several more recent sources say the flapperon fragment indicate it was in fact not deployed prior to water entry.

If the theory about the pilot wanting to kill himself is right, why would he faciliting a potentially more drawn out death by configuring the plane for a potentially survivable water landing? Why not let the plane fly into the water to hasten his own demise?

This is an very remote part of the ocean seldom traversed by any marine or air traffic. The nearest beach is a couple of years away at normal drift speed.

[Catholic_Lady]

For 2 reason.

1. He could go even farther south if he glided it down rather than just letting it plummet.

2. The plane would remain more intact and harder to find.

[Anomalocaris]

For 2 reason.

1. He could go even farther south if he glided it down rather than just letting it plummet.

2. The plane would remain more intact and harder to find.

If the plane runs out of fuel it would not just plummet.  It would glide by itself at high speed.  FBW control system will still keep making adjustments required for fast stable glide.  Flaps allow the plane to glide slower and thus make safer and slower landings.  But it does not allow the plane to glide further from the point where it lost power.  If anything it steepens the glide slope and make the plane hit the water nearer to the point where it lost power.

With modern sonars, detecting a intact 777 on the sea floor would be relative easy.  Detecting a thoroughly broken up wreckage from violent water impact would be much more difficult. The fact that no large wreckage piece observable from the surface by sonar were found after 4 years of searching makes it seem more probable that the plane broke up pretty thoroughly upon water entry.

[Catholic_Lady]

If the plane runs out of fuel it would not just plummet.  It would glide by itself at high speed.  

The pilots/aviation experts on the documentaries were saying differently, so I don't know.