False Leads Plague Search for Plane

AP via Wall Street Journal ^ | March 11, 2014 | Staff

[lbryce]

Hunt Is Widened for Lost Malaysian Flight as Frustrations Mount; Debris Proves Unrelated to Jet

Three days of fruitless air and sea search for a vanished Malaysia Airlines flight left investigators with no concrete evidence of what happened to the plane or the people aboard.

The search area was widened as frustrations mounted across the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam, where the search was concentrated, and in hotels where the families of the missing passengers congregated in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.

[lbryce]

“We are bewildered” with the disappearance, said Hishamuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s acting transport minister.

The inexplicable circumstances surrounding the vanished Malaysia Airlines is a mystery of overwhelming proportions that borders on the supernatural. That in this modern day and age an aircraft as sophisticated as that of what has gone missing for three days without any remnant, clue defies rationle, explanation.

To bring order to the befuddling events all scenarios however unlikely deserve merit in seeking to get a grip on the befuddling events surrounding the missing aircraft.

In a rational, natural world, omitting the realm of science fiction, supernatural as key to understanding the events surrounding the missing plane, there are two possibilities.

1. Either the plane has crashed, everyone aboard killed, evidence of which should soon reveal themselves

2.The plane landed in some secret location, purposes unknown but under the assumption of nefarious motives, the perpetrators making themselves known in due time.

Both these scenarios become less likely as the lack of evidence, contact make these suppositions more untenable with each passing day.

[Paladin2]

Do they (or the US gov’t-NSA/FAA/DOD, etc.) have decent Radar Data?

[lbryce]

I don’t know. I do know that the US authorities make a daily review of all global satellite coverage and have stated that in regards to the missing aircraft, satellite imagery has not revealed anything on the matter.

[montag813]

I have one question: can a 777 transponder be disabled from the plane?

[allendale]

If there was a US Navy capital ship in the area, the record of that flight should be on their radar logs.

[lbryce]

Turning off the transponders during the 9/11 attacks were key to their success. I remember reading that in the aftermath of 9/11 the authorities would change the way the transporter operated to eliminate having them disabled. I have no idea if that was ever resolved. But, I tend to gravitate towards concurring with your suggestion that the transponder was indeed disabled no matter what may have been done otherwise to prevent such action and that the lack of physical evidence has me believing that the plane
is intact, the passengers being held, for reasons that have yet to reveal themselves.

[nickcarraway]

If those two scenarios are becoming less likely, what is becoming more likely?

[SaxxonWoods]

The searchers are grasping at straws. They are searching the Malacca Strait now. If the plane went down there, it turned around and flew most of the way back to the airport after radar contact was lost.

[lbryce]

LOL. Good question. What is becoming more likely is my inability to respond. :-)

[lbryce]

In a just posted article, eyewitnesses have come forward to say they've seen an aircraft falling from the sky at a rapid pace, then flying very low, seeing bright lights.

So, I guess while it's a case of good news/bad news, perhaps events surrounding the missing plane is beginning to reveal themselves.

[precisionshootist]

From what I'm hearing the plane disappeared from radar at altitude. No decent.

The plane must have disintegrated in mid air. Adding that to the passports and one way tickets paid for in cash tell me this was a terrorist attack. The plane was blown up. Probably a test for a bigger attack.

[lbryce]

Take a look at the most recent posted article. The post has two links to radar sites you might want to check out.

[cpdiii]

There seems to be a lot of puzzlement over the fact that no wreckage has been recovered at sea or on land. This would indicate that the aircraft was intact until impact.

If this were a high speed impact in a virtually vertical impact the debris would be minimal and in a very small area be it on land or jungle or shallow water. If impact is in deep water, there will be a considerable debris field and much floating debris on the surface of the water. If it went in in very shallow water most if not all of the airframe could be buried in the mud. When an aircraft goes in at very high speed in a near vertical angle, the impact area is small and very little debris is seen. The debris is buried.

I suspect this aircraft did not break up in the air at high altitude but went in totally intact at very high speed, perhaps supersonic. If this is the case it would rule out catastrophic in flight airframe failure.

I do find the public pronouncements of Malaysian Air a bit odd. They are saying very little. This leads me to believe they are on the trail of bad guys and do not want to compromise this effort. If I were them, I would do exactly the same thing.

[Psalm 73]

"The plane was blown up."

Wouldn't the terrorists announce thier deed? What would be sense of radio silence - esp. if everyone thought it wasn't terrorists?

[PghBaldy]

If they were trying to affect Chinese or Malaysian policy, they would worry less about what the public thinks. It might just be enough for the leaders to know what happened, in the supposed terrorists’ minds.