Take over, lets party!!
Posted on 03/11/2014 6:25:38 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Pirates. It would be amazing. Steal a state of the art aircraft, and keep a dozen countries stumped for days in regards to its whereabouts. Got to give them credit for their ambition and brass in doing it if that’s what happened.
If we were informed correctly, the plane had 7.5 hours of fuel on board. How far can it go in 7.5 hours?
Look at me. I’m the pilot now.
For the record: Kuala Lumpur is roughly 3900 miles(3300 nautical miles) to Mogadishu.
Seems a bit far for a passenger/hijacker to be confident there would be enough fuel on board in order to make it.
Well, the typical cruising speed is .80 Mach at 35,000 feet. The range that they can travel in 7.5 hours will depend on their airspeed and altitude.
My gut feeling is the plane is near Banda Aceh or NW of it. Millions of little islands.
I’m not a pilot, but maybe the charts in the link below can give you a good guess/estimate.
http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/777family/pf/pf_200product.page
If it were an act of piracy, somewhere Blackbeard is raising a tankard of grog in salute, saying “Well done, me hearties!”
What if in flight a malfunction occurred causing an electric fire?
You need the ability to turn off ALL the stuff in your aircraft.
....and headed for a new destination.....
But this isn't a hijacking.
Take over, lets party!!
In general the problem I have with Indonesia as a destination is, a hell of a lot of people live there, and hiding a 777 would be no easy task. However, I have no knowledge of the surrounding islands, or if any have potentially accommodating airfields.
I’m currently looking at a few pictures of the Pilot and Co-Pilot. I haven’t read any real informative bio or either, but just looking through the pictures, if either were involved, I’d probably bet on the Pilot.
The 27 year old Co-Pilot is shown in the pictures as a Latte/Milkshake drinking, Polo Shirt wearing(western style), potential ladies man(if the recent report of him bringing women into the cockpit is true). Seems to me like he had a good life that he enjoyed, or more accurately, I life he wouldn’t want to jeopardize or give up.
The 50+ year old Pilot also seemed like a generally jovial guy who was VERY into flying(even had a sophisticated simulator in his home). However, he seemed more of a potential loner, and maybe all those hours on the simulator had him thinking dangerous thoughts(evading radar, taking the plane to its limits, etc).
Now THERE’S some pure speculation for you. haha!
Truthfully, after looking through the pictures, I wouldn’t bet on either of them being involved. Which makes this whole thing even more frustrating. Unless maybe something catastrophic happened in their own lives, and they ‘cracked’.
Since the Malacca Strait is a complete reversal, it is important to know what they mean by "a lower altitude". If that means it started flying on the deck, nap of the earth, then it was evasion. Evasion suggests a hijacking and a landing destination.
If they mean it went from 36000 to 34000, then that's a different story.
From L-R: Yes, Oh, heck Yes, Fariq Abdul Hamid
I quite agree. “Lower altitude” can mean danged near anything. We have so little to work with at this point.
I agree a distinction would be helpful, but even if what they meant by ‘lower altitude’ was a drop from 36000 to 34000 feet, what would you think that meant?
In both potential cases, in an unauthorized manner the airplane drastically changed course, while sending zero signals to anyone.
Exactly, it is “hinky” any way that you look at it.
Most definitely. I can understand why analyzing radar data in depth might add so much time to the release of this information, but this is ominous. The Telegraph relays the altitude over this updated "last contact" over Pulau Perak (5.68°N, 98.94°E) was 30,000' -- that's definitely not a crashing airliner, as in Payne Stewart's disaster. That's also a course for Banda Aceh (northern Sumatra) or a Great Circle route to Tanzania/Kenya/Somalia, and this particular aircraft is likely to have had the fuel, definitely the range, to keep sailing across the Indian Ocean for half a day -- much of that time under cover of darkness.
Let's see how long it takes our Brain Trust news media to "get a clue" that this latest tidbit of data goes beyond a mere hint of the aircraft turning west. This is a new Last Contact, a long way from the original search area.
This narrows the possibilities (bomb far less likely) to decompression (less likely) or hijacking. 
THANK YOU. I Have been posting Somalia. Why not??
Nice maps. I’m sitting here using a pen, pressed against my screen, as my straight-edge.
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