MYSTERY IN THE SKY - WTF? - MH370 & MH17 & QZ8501 & More

[Midwest Spy]

I still believe the senior pilot sabotaged the aircraft.

Why? Not so sure, however, he is related to the political figure that was jailed the day before the flight vanished.

If he had asked the co-pilot to step out of the cockpit (to grab him something, or check on something), he could have conceivably locked him out of the cockpit.

Then when he flew low after crossing the Malay peninsula to either avoid other plane traffic or avoid radar detection, the co-pilot could have tried to make a cell call.

But, you'd think some of the passengers would have tried that too??

The pilot certainly would have known air corridors to fly through in order to avoid radar detection and probably was aware of ocean depths and HOW to crash a plane in order to minimize debris and minimize chances of plane ever being found.

Just a theory, but makes a lot of sense to me.

[Duchess]

If that were the senior pilot's agenda why wouldn't he have made his stance known? Why do something like this if no one would ever know? Where's the satisfaction in that?

[Midwest Spy]

Maybe because the entire thing reflects negatively on Malaysia without assigning guilt to him??

[blueberryhill]

I think I am repeating myself here, but when the Flying Tiger Connie disappeared enroute from Guam and Vietnam in March 1962, there was no debri field....Ships in the area reported bright lights in the sky indicating a possible explosion. Plane was a chartered (by US Govt) to carry military personnel to Vietnam...but bottom line is they never found any debri from this aircraft.
Water's depth in area was approximately 6 miles plus...Although Wikipedia lists possible explosion or some sort of thing as a cause, officially the cause of disappearance is unknown....according to FFA accident reports after investigation completed.
I personally don't think the crew did anything untoward, but that is just my own opinion.
Oh, by the way, can't remember what thread it was, but Hair called me a Mock teaser....that's a good one....I seriously want to thank you for the time you devote to research on current events, mock members, etc. Your writing is creative, witty, intelligent, and thorough....it is not easy to have a life and keep everyone updated on stuff so thanks.....I just know I should have put this on a different thread.....

[HairOfTheDog]

Thank you blueberryhill, you mock-tease.

I'm now inclined to believe that the Malaysian plane likely went down due to a malfunction which caused the pilots to turn off the tracking devices as a safety measure.

But, I too wonder if we'll ever really know what happened -- could well end up to be another enduring mystery like that of Flying Tiger Connie -- though, especially for the families' sakes, I hope not.

Here's the latest on the technical difficulties that have arisen during the debris search.

Snip
The underwater vessel searching for traces of the missing Malaysian jet resurfaced Wednesday to fix a technical issue, but then redeployed again.

While on deck, its data were downloaded, the Australian Joint Agency Coordination Centre said. This is the second setback for the underwater vehicle deployed to scan the ocean floor for debris linked to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

In its first dive Monday, crews dipped it into the Indian Ocean on what was expected to be a 20-hour deployment. It returned less than eight hours later after it exceeded its maximum dive depth.

"What Bluefin did was it detected that it was moving was near its maximum depth, sending signals back to its operators, said Mike Dean, the U.S. Navy deputy director for salvage and diving.

It found no debris during its shortened scanning session.

Searchers lowered it toward the ocean floor for a second dive Tuesday, and it resurfaced short of its 24-hour mission because of technical issues. It then went down again.

Full story: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/16/world/...?hpt=hp_t2

[HairOfTheDog]

BACK TO SQUARE ONE

The area off the coast of western Australia is not the "final resting place of MH370," the Australia-based Joint Agency Coordination Centre said.

Officials zeroed in on that zone after acoustic pings originally thought to be from the black boxes of the missing plane were detected in early April.

"The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has advised that the search in the vicinity of the acoustic detections can now be considered complete and in its professional judgment, the area can now be discounted as the final resting place of MH370"...

Hours earlier, a U.S. Navy official told CNN that the pings at the center of the search for the past seven weeks are no longer believed to have come from the plane's black boxes.

Authorities now almost universally believe the pings did not come from the onboard data or cockpit voice recorders but instead came from some other man-made source unrelated to the jetliner that disappeared on March 8, according to Michael Dean, the Navy's deputy director of ocean engineering.

"Our best theory at this point is that (the pings were) likely some sound produced by the ship ... or within the electronics of the Towed Pinger Locator," Dean said.

The pinger locator was used by searchers to listen for underwater signals.

Full story: http://us.cnn.com/2014/05/29/world/asia/...?hpt=hp_t1
----------------------------------------------------------------

So, basically, the searchers were likely searching that area based on pings/signals emitted from one of their own pieces of search equipment.

I don't think MH370 is gonna be found for quite some time, if ever, despite today's advanced technology and the good faith efforts of international experts.

[HairOfTheDog]

Shit, this is sad.



Another Malaysia passenger plane is down. Initial speculation is that it was targeted by Russian forces in the midst of the conflict between Russia and the Ukraine.

Investigation is underway, but Senator John McCain has already made comments that Putin will face more major repercussions if it turns out Russian-backed forces are responsible.

Snip:
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A Ukrainian official said a passenger plane carrying 295 people was shot down Thursday over a town in the east of the country, and Malaysian Airlines tweeted that it lost contact with one of its flights over Ukrainian airspace.

Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, said on his Facebook page the plane was flying at an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) when it was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher. A similar launcher was seen by Associated Press journalists near the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne earlier Thursday. The Buk missile system can fire missiles up to an altitude of 22,000 meters (72,000 feet).

Malaysia Airlines said on its Twitter feed that it "has lost contact of MH17 from Amsterdam. The last known position was over Ukrainian airspace. More details to follow."

The region has seen severe fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russia separatist rebels in recent days.

Full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/17...95516.html

[Duchess]

Oh my God. Would Russia really shoot down a passenger jet. This is awful.

[HairOfTheDog]

Oh my God. Would Russia really shoot down a passenger jet. This is awful.

Not on purpose, IMO.

But pro-Russian separatists in the Eastern Ukraine might have mistakenly shot it down.

Putin is claiming that he's not fueling or supporting them -- a denial that many doubt to be true.

Until it can be proven who's responsible for targeting the plane, I expect to see a lot of fingerpointing -- the Ukranian military will insinuate that it was the Russian separatists and vice versa.

Very sad for the families of the passengers, and potentially very big political impacts in regards to Putin's relations with NATO and the EU. There were 20 or more Dutch passengers on the outbound Amsterdam flight.

[HairOfTheDog]

WARNING: IMAGES OF DEAD BODIES INCLUDED IN VIDEO

The video is in Russian or Ukranian, but gives an up close view of the damage and the area where the plane went down. Unlike MH370, the mystery is not locating the plane, but instead who shot down MH17 and why.

Russian Separatists blame Ukraine Military, Ukraine Military blames Russian Separatists.

From the New York Post:

A Malaysian airliner cruising at 33,000 feet over Ukraine was shot down on Thursday — killing all 295 aboard, including 23 Americans — and the government blamed pro-Russian Ukrainian militants.

The Boeing 777 headed from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur crashed near the Russian border about 4:30 p.m. local time after it was shot down by a Russian rocket, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister said.

The adviser, Anton Gerashenko, said on his Facebook page the plane was hit by a missile fired from a Russian-made Buk rocket launcher.

“Cynicism of Putin and his terrorists, there is no limit!” he wrote, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The rocket was fired by pro-Russian Ukrainian militants, Bloomberg News reported, citing the Ukrainian government.

But Russian news agency RIA Novasti said on Twitter that the rebels denied the accusation.

“East Ukraine’s militias deny they shot down the Malaysian aircraft, blame Ukrainian armed forces,” the agency tweeted.

Rebels said the Malaysian plane was brought down by a Ukrainian SU-25 aircraft.

http://nypost.com/2014/07/17/malaysian-p...n-ukraine/

[Duchess]

I've been listening to coverage of this on CNN. It's exactly as you said it would be, HotD. The finger pointing, the blame shifting. People are being quite bold in their accusations, even going so far as to say Putin has sanctioned terrorism and he bears sole responsibility for this.

[crash]

I was literally gobsmacked when I read about this first thing this morning. Surely in 2014 you cannot mistakenly take out a commercial passenger jet? The whole thing is pretty fucked up..

I read an article where a Dutch guy posted a picture of the plane to his facebook page, just minutes before take off, with the caption "Should it go missing, this is what it looks like".

My middle daughter is flying to Europe later this year. This shit is not helping the worry levels..

[Duchess]

It's absolutely horrible. CNN reported earlier that the jet was actually tracked in the sky before the missile was launched. I don't know how they'd have that info, they may have said and I just didn't hear it. I've been thinking about those poor people and those who loved them :(

[Midwest Spy]

Im sure many survived the initial missile strike.

From there, it was just a matter if you were.conscious and realized what was happening, plummeting 33,000 feet.

The US issued a warning 3 months back advising US carriers to avoid that region completely.

Sounds like Malaysia Air was trying to save fuel and thus put themselves in harms way. At least that's what I read.

I'm in no way excusing what happened, but there was ample warning for commercial aircraft to avoid this region.

[Duchess]

Sounds like Malaysia Air was trying to save fuel

I heard that.

[ramseycat]

This world is going to hell. So much violence and devastation. And nothing ever gets better. Why? Why does the violence continue when it solves nothing?

[HairOfTheDog]

Sounds like Malaysia Air was trying to save fuel and thus put themselves in harms way. At least that's what I read.

I'm in no way excusing what happened, but there was ample warning for commercial aircraft to avoid this region.

I know you're not blaming them, but I don't think the downing of the commercial airline could have been foreseen by Malaysia Air or the pilot and don't think they had ample warning. The plane was flying in air-space previously believed to be safe; it was a standard direct route.

The restricted area that was established by at least the US and France back in April was surrounding Crimea -- the Malaysia flight was not flying in that restricted airspace when it was targeted and shot down by the surface-to-air missile.

Other airlines like Lufthansa, Turkish Air, Delta...are now busy re-routing flight paths to avoid that area of the Ukraine; the FAA has advised all carriers to avoid the Russia / Ukraine border in the wake of yesterday's events.

There were reportedly up to 20 of the world's top AIDS researchers and specialists aboard the plane and headed for an annual conference in Australia -- double hit in terms of their lost lives and potentially lives they could have helped save.

If it turns out that separatists backed by Russia and using a Russian-supplied missile downed MH17, Putin's going down hard politically, IMO.

If it turns out that missile was launched by the Ukrainian Military -- our ally -- the US, western Europe, and NATO are gonna be in a hell of a spot determining what comes next.

[crash]

I read an article about a lady who lost her brother and sister in-law on MH 370, her step son on MH 17. Life is a cruel motherfucker sometimes..

[HairOfTheDog]

I read an article about a lady who lost her brother and sister in-law on MH 370, her step son on MH 17. Life is a cruel motherfucker sometimes..

That's so damned sad and cruelly weird. What are the odds?

It's sad all the way around. Families in at least 9 different countries are mourning loved ones who died completely unexpectedly. There were 154 Dutch citizens, 28 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine Brits, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos and one Canadian on board. Source: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-...-americans

Yesterday, the NY Post reported 23 Americans were on board MH17, but that's not been validated by officials, AFAIK. There are still 41 passengers whose countries of residence still haven't been officially released/confirmed.

[HairOfTheDog]

President Obama will be making a statement on the downed airliner and the Ukraine conflict at 11:30 EST.

Here's the CBS live stream link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/live-video/3/