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 ...
Opening scene from For Your Eyes Only
My thought on the question mark is, at a distance a flaming object seen at 1:30+AM their time would not be seen in detail.
His judgement on distance,50-70 km, was also non- definitive.
For an observer, Mchael J. McKay was on an Oil Rig, standing on a hill or tower 100 feet (30 m) in height, the horizon is at a distance of 12.2 miles (19.6 km)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon
Any object at altitude, even above a few feet, past the horizon can be observed as long as it is bright enough and the sky is dark and clear.
May not have known they were headed somewhere other than where they were supposed to be headed so there was no panic no.1 and no.2 the captain may have told them not to.
With the prospect of ending up in a Chinese prison for using a phone on a plane, would you use your phone?
It may have been as simple as the captain telling the passengers they were making a slight correction to go around a storm and do not use your phones or any electric device or risk going to a Chinese prison.
I believe the “news” story triggering the attack will be centered around the “TEA Party, right wing extremist, racist” not supporting Obama and making Obama look weak to the world making the world a dangerous place.
Fox had a guest on this morning (a former general I believe) who said just that and the information was being withheld but it would become clearer in the next 24-48 hours. He speculated the plane most likely the plane did go to Pakistan for what ever reason (prepare attack on Israel?).
Mimicking saudi royals signals? Would make sense.
That was my thought, especially where it's forced to note "Pilots do that in the ordinary course of flying".
I've heard some pretty naive talk from senior American officials before, too.
HF
The NSA knows exactly where it is!
No, but you could practice using the Flight Management Computer with MS Flight Simulator and an add-on like Wilco Boeing 777. Ban flight simulators! /sarc
Fighter pilot manoeuvers?
Hope it wasn’t one of the Saudi’s we trained in Texas a few years back.
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“Boeing 777 hijackers plunged to 5,000ft and used low altitude ‘terrain masking’ manoeuvre practised by fighter jets to avoid radar detection”
Not buying it. Someone would have been in the cockpit looking for nearest airfield screaming Mayday the whole way down.
Being in Boeing aviation, I wait for verifiable facts, not “statements” by people not in the know.
Mmmmm. Seems someone made fun of me when I said it was the autopilot making the plan zig zag through the air. Garbage in - garbage out. And it’s not too far fetched to believe the garbage was being put in remotely.
If you are inside an investigation, you have that luxury. If you are on the outside, like the public, you’ll have a very long wait for that Information ... if you ever get it at all ... :-) ...
I have heard that the plane climbed to 45000 feet and that may be false data. But what if it had. Not to kill the passengers but to fly over something like the Himalayas. Just a thought.
Fighter pilot manoeuvers? One of the Saudi’s we trained in Texas years ago?
Except for muzlims representing the 57 muzzie terrorist nations or homegrown terrorists! They get to board with minimal, if any sort of safety procedures or searches.
Those invasive humiliating searches are only for white Americans, especially infants & children & elderly white people in walkers and wheel chairs.
I believe the computers engaged the change of flight path AFTER the ‘alright, good night’ comment. Perhaps all comm was disabled at that point, as directed by the modified software.
And also note that just because ACARS was turned off, doesn’t mean the knob was turned to the ‘off’ position in the cockpit. It’s like your computer monitor button is ‘on’ but the monitor is really off because the computer is off. This is similar to how ACARS was turned off by the software, even though the knob was probably ‘on’.
It’s entirely possible that the flight control software was somehow modified such that the pilots were TOTALLY locked out of making ANY inputs. Why no ‘mayday’? Perhaps ALL communications were turned off by the hacked software which commandeered the plane.
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