Posted on 03/17/2014 6:59:33 PM PDT by kristinn
The first turn to the west that diverted the missing Malaysia Airlines plane from its planned flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing was carried out through a computer system that was most likely programmed by someone in the plane’s cockpit who was knowledgeable about airplane systems, according to senior American officials.
Instead of manually operating the plane’s controls, whoever altered Flight 370’s path typed seven or eight keystrokes into a computer on a knee-high pedestal between the captain and the first officer, according to officials. The Flight Management System, as the computer is known, directs the plane from point to point specified in the flight plan submitted before each flight. It is not clear whether the plane’s path was reprogrammed before or after it took off.
The fact that the turn away from Beijing was programmed into the computer has reinforced the belief of investigators — first voiced by Malaysian officials — that the plane was deliberately diverted and that foul play was involved. It has also increased their focus on the plane’s captain and first officer.
SNIP
According to investigators, it appears that a waypoint was added to the planned route. Pilots do that in the ordinary course of flying if air traffic controllers tell them to take a different route, to avoid weather or traffic. But in this case, the waypoint was far off the path to Beijing.
Whoever changed the plane’s course would have had to be familiar with Boeing aircraft, though not necessarily the 777 — the type of plane that disappeared. American officials and aviation experts said it was far-fetched to believe that a passenger could have reprogrammed the Flight Management System.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sounds like some idiot reporter learned of the Flight Management System and just wanted to sound smart by using it in an article.
The article I saw only said that there was a flight engineer in the cockpit. So, that information was provided previous to today.
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a muzzie trip, that started from this muzzie ‘port aboard this muzzie ship!
Here is my question(If anyone here knows the answer that would be great) let’s say just for the sake of argument, that there was some catastrophic mechanical failure event taking place on the plane..would putting in this flight path on the computer make sense..or would the pilot just take the plane off of auto pilot and start flying back to an airport, any airport in the immediate area? I think it would be the most interesting to know WHEN the Pre-programmed U-Turn was programmed, BEFORE the flight or AFTER the flight was in the air..if it was before the plane ever took off that is the big game changer
Except for this phrase ... “according to senior American officials.”
If there is an emergency in flying the plane, you don’t try to control it remotely. The pilot would take control immediately.
“So it was the Captain, with a computer”
No, it was the flight director which is built into the aircraft.
Every commercial aircraft has one and a lot of private aircraft do also.
Nahhh.. Flight software was probably altered even before aircraft left the ground and at some point, no matter what the pilots did it had no effect. The guy flying the plane was probably sitting in the passenger section via his laptop or perhaps in another country flying the aircraft remotely. Commands by the pilots were probably futile as they were locked-out completely. Part of the evil hack probably included killing their voice communications from the cockpit to ATC after ‘alright, good night’. You buyin?
I’ll make a bet with you.
If it is used in some kind of terrorist attack, I bet the Obama adm. will have some version of the “spontaneous” lie to explain the timing of the attack itself.
Not the taking the plan as “spontaneous” but the attack itself.
That’s what I thought, that if something horrible is happening on board mechanically, they wouldn’t even bother to do this, they would take the plane to the nearest airport, not bother punching in some fly path
Surely the pilot can take back manual control in such a situation. A plane hack?
I would love to know how they know this.
Yeah, but the computer that changed course may have received it’s orders from another computer, just like in Internetland.
That would solve the problem. Or put them out with sleeping gas.
Except that phrase means nothing. Might as well have said, “I am making this stuff up.”
Seems to me I heard this a day or two ago. Maybe it was speculation at that time. Hard to keep track.
I want to know why this particular plane, and or particular flight? Why steal THIS plane?
For cargo? For plane? For passenger(s)?
Especially this ace pilot.
I’m pretty committed to the wreckage/debris field off Pulau Palax, but this engineer changes everything. I think the pilot would have done everything to recover control, unless someone incapacitated him.
Mine: Plane was headed for Diego Garcia. It was intercepted and shot down. This happened during several golf games that included some precise mulligans. The specifics are sealed forever. Next EO?
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