Missing MH370: Kelantan duo report seeing lights 'falling' at high speed

The Star Online ^ | 11MAR2014 | Staff writer

[Jack Hydrazine]

KOTA BARU: The authorities here have their hands full after receiving at least two reports from the public that they saw an aircraft flying low on the same day Malaysian Airlines MH370 vanished.

In his report, the owner of a fishing boat claimed that he saw an airplane flying low while he was at sea with a friend about 14.4km from Kuala Besar in Pantai Cahaya Bulan here at 1.30am on Saturday.

Azid Ibrahim, 66, said the aircraft was heading towards international waters.

According to him, the plane was flying so low that he could see the lights “as big as coconuts”.

He said he saw the aircraft with his friend Pak De while five other anglers were asleep in the boat.

In a report which appeared on a local English news portal, a man in Ketereh, 30km south of Kota Baru, claimed that he saw “bright white lights” which he believed to be that of an aircraft descending at high speed at 1.45am the same day the jetliner went missing.

Businessman Alif Fathi Abdul Hadi, 29, said he was in the compound of his home when he saw the aircraft flying low, heading for Bachok and descending fast.

He said he only found out about the missing jetplane the next day and decided to lodge a report at the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency office in Tok Bali late Sunday evening.

[gunsequalfreedom]

Interesting. Someone take control of the plane, dive and then fly under the radar?

Just interpreting the article. My tin foil hat is next to me. I am not wearing it.

[Jack Hydrazine]

I speculate that the aircraft has been either hijacked by the Iranians or stolen with the cap and f.o.’s permission. They turned the aircraft around, dropped to a low altitude to avoid radar but burning fuel at a higher rate than at cruising altitude, and flew to a remote airfield in one of many numerous islands in that region of the world, disembarked the passengers, and have loaded an Iranian nuke on board. That 777 will be repainted and re-programmed to look like another legitimate civilian aircraft. Then it will be flown into US airspace and detonated over a large city either in CA or NY. It probably would not be detected until it was too late.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Bizarre: missing Malaysia Airlines passengers’ phones ring, but no one answers
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3131568/posts

[diverteach]

That’d make a good Tom Clancy movie plot.

[dalereed]

Fighter jet intercepting and shooting down the airliner??

[dalereed]

“Bizarre: missing Malaysia Airlines passengers’ phones ring, but no one answers”

It’s probably in the aircraft terminal where the passanger forgot to pick it up after it went through the x-ray machine.

[The KG9 Kid]

Thank you, Amazing Criswell.

[Dilbert San Diego]

I’ve heard that cell phones contain global positioning system transponders inside. If that’s true, then would it be possible to triangulate the location of the passengers phones? Is that at all possible???

[VanShuyten]

Minimum runway for take off is 5000 feet empty, 7000 half-full, and 9000+ for completely full.

http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/airports/acaps/777_2lr3er.pdf

Your job is to locate all airports in a reasonable radius, say 3-4 hours from last known location, that have such runways.

[steve86]

Not GPS trqnsponders but receivers (most phones now). No need to triangulate, the latitude and longitude are right there in a data packet. But you’ve got to have communication with the phone. Some phones do not have the GPS chips and those need to be triangulated from nearby towers.

[punchamullah]

How long you reckon it took them to build a 9000 foot concrete landing strip on one of those islands?

I do hope they didn’t forget to build a jetty to bring in the kerosene they will need to take off again ...

[cmsgop]

That part of the world, there is a sh$tload boats, all the time, someone saw something

[Sarah Barracuda]

Was watching the local news now and supposedly a large debris field has been spotted off the coast of Vietnam, dont know if this is a false lead or it could mean something

[Prospero]

This sighting, if it proves relevant, would be consistent with theories suggesting the Malaysian Airlines 777-200 SR was commandeered and re-routed to some remote location, into the variable "heart of darkness" but well inside the realm of the very nasty AQ franchise headquartered in the southern Philippines.

On the map above this sighting would have been near the far northern coast of Sulawesi, or, if you prefer, the southern side of the Celebes Sea, at about 120° plus - southeast of the "last contact, rather than the 90° course indicated. About two hours flight time, more at low altitude, but still well before pre-dawn twilight.

I would not, definitely not, give the AQ Philippians credit for such an operation, but they might serve well as actors providing a hypothetical staging area for a cooperative operation whose end-game would still be unknown, one that perhaps included Tehran and God knows who else.

That group likes hostages, too.

They had the fuel, perhaps the skill.

If one were inclined to speculate further, and imagine such an hypothetical operation still underway, a wider search concentrated under the last contact would allow time to prepare for using the aircraft as a weapon, while attention in concentrated elsewhere.

However, such hypothetical conspirators would still need to act quickly because they will not be able to hide indefinitely.

The time of this Red Eye flight would have granted sufficient cover before local sunrise, the fuel was heavy, and perhaps most ominously, the aircraft has an very long range.

The Australians and perhaps the Japanese should exercise due diligence. .

[cuban leaf]

I’ve heard that cell phones contain global positioning system transponders inside. If that’s true, then would it be possible to triangulate the location of the passengers phones? Is that at all possible???

---

Yes. If these phones were still active after the “crash” and near any towers, they would be pinging the towers. Every single ping is archived with data identifying the phone. There is even a youtube video from a guy that subpoena’d the phone records for his phone and used the raw tower data to create an animated map showing where his phone (and he) was during part of that time period.

I used to work with law enforcement relations for one of the big phone companies that associates itself with a color I hate. If your cell phone is on and there are any towers nearby, there is a record being kept of your position. If there are lots of towers, it can be pinpointed almost as accurately as with gps. I’ve seen it done (with my phone, while I watched it being done).