Posted on 03/13/2014 11:38:06 AM PDT by mandaladon
U.S. officials have an "indication" the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner may have crashed in the Indian Ocean and is moving the USS Kidd to the area to begin searching.
It will take another 24 hours to move the ship into position, a senior Pentagon official told ABC News. "We have an indication the plane went down in the Indian Ocean," the senior official said. The official said there were indications that the plane flew four or five hours after disappearing from radar and that they believe it went into the water.
Pentagon officials said that the USS Kidd was being moved at the request of Malaysia and is heading towards an area where the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea meet. It has helicopters aboard that can scour the area.
The U.S. action came hours after Malaysian officials said they had extended their search into the Andaman Sea and had requested help from India in the search for the missing plane and its 239 passengers.
Investigators also said today that U.S. officials gave them reasons to keep searching the waters west of Malaysia, far from the flight path of the Malaysia Airlines plane.
Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that the search’s “main focus has always been in the South China Sea,” which is east of Malaysia and along the plane’s route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
But the search was extended earlier this week to include water far to the west on the other side of Malaysia. “We are working very closely with the FAA and the NTSB on the issue of a possible air turn back,” Hishammuddin said, referring to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board.
(Excerpt) Read more at gma.yahoo.com ...
Would have to be done with a seance as Peppard died in 1994.
Interesting. I’d just assumed that the radar return would be easily able to distinguish a lear from a 777.
In light of the tinfoil theories the plane might be reused I find that tidbit disturbing. I’d thought it would be difficult for such a large plane to get close enough to a big metro w/o being busted by radar returns.
If the flight controllers aren’t using the returns in that way could a 777 could ‘lie’ as a learjet and get close to a major metro area?
American Airlines Flight 77
FAA Awareness. American 77 began deviating from its flight plan at 8:54, with a slight turn toward the south. Two minutes later, it disappeared completely from radar at Indianapolis Center, which was controlling the flight.138
The controller tracking American 77 told us he noticed the aircraft turning to the southwest, and then saw the data disappear. The controller looked for primary radar returns. He searched along the plane’s projected flight path and the airspace to the southwest where it had started to turn. No primary targets appeared. He tried the radios, first calling the aircraft directly, then the air-line. Again there was nothing. At this point, the Indianapolis controller had no knowledge of the situation in New York. He did not know that other aircraft had been hijacked. He believed American 77 had experienced serious electrical or mechanical failure, or both, and was gone.139
Shortly after 9:00, Indianapolis Center started notifying other agencies that American 77 was missing and had possibly crashed. At 9:08, Indianapolis Center asked Air Force Search and Rescue at Langley Air Force Base to look for a downed aircraft. The center also contacted the West Virginia State Police and asked whether any reports of a downed aircraft had been received. At 9:09, it reported the loss of contact to the FAA regional center, which passed this information to FAA headquarters at 9:24.140
By 9:20, Indianapolis Center learned that there were other hijacked aircraft, and began to doubt its initial assumption that American 77 had crashed. A discussion of this concern between the manager at Indianapolis and the Command Center in Herndon prompted it to notify some FAA field facilities that American 77 was lost. By 9:21, the Command Center, some FAA field facilities, and American Airlines had started to search for American 77.They feared it had been hijacked. At 9:25, the Command Center advised FAA headquarters of the situation.141
The failure to find a primary radar return for American 77 led us to investigate this issue further. Radar reconstructions performed after 9/11 reveal that FAA radar equipment tracked the flight from the moment its transponder was turned off at 8:56. But for 8 minutes and 13 seconds, between 8:56 and 9:05, this primary radar information on American 77 was not displayed to controllers at Indianapolis Center.142 The reasons are technical, arising from the way the software processed radar information, as well as from poor primary radar coverage where American 77 was flying.
According to the radar reconstruction, American 77 reemerged as a primary target on Indianapolis Center radar scopes at 9:05, east of its last known posi-tion. The target remained in Indianapolis Center’s airspace for another six minutes, then crossed into the western portion of Washington Center’s airspace at 9:10.As Indianapolis Center continued searching for the aircraft, two managers and the controller responsible for American 77 looked to the west and southwest along the flight’s projected path, not east-where the aircraft was now heading. Managers did not instruct other controllers at Indianapolis Center to turn on their primary radar coverage to join in the search for American 77.143
In sum, Indianapolis Center never saw Flight 77 turn around. By the time it reappeared in primary radar coverage, controllers had either stopped looking for the aircraft because they thought it had crashed or were looking toward the west. Although the Command Center learned Flight 77 was missing, neither it nor FAA headquarters issued an all points bulletin to surrounding centers to search for primary radar targets. American 77 traveled undetected for 36 minutes on a course heading due east for Washington, D.C.144
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
Very likely.
It may have been ‘electronically’ hijacked, all the electronic comm systems shut off by remote hackers or even ones on board. The Captain and crew were helpless to do anything but ride............
That's funny - I thought of Banacek also! This sounds like it could be the plot for an episode of that program.
I believe they were going to 9/11 the plane into the Mumbai Financial District, but at low altitude the aircraft would not have had nearly enough fuel to get there.
Gee, here’s a novel idea.......
How about having NO WAY to turn off the Transponders in Aircrafts??
Most, if not all, centers have discontinued using any primary radar at all. And high altitude sectors never select the function, even if it is available.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that we know exactly what happened to this plane. For some reason, we cannot tip our hand about HOW we know. The Chinese, Malaysians, and the Vietnamese are all running around like Keystone Kops--and they all have their own reasons for doing so. The clock is being run out, but we don't know why. Lots of behind the scenes stuff going on, no doubt.
Our satellites probably tracked this plane to its demise, and listened in on all radio transmissions. Now, that we are six days out and no one can find Waldo, the US is stepping in and pointing the way.
There is much more to this story than we are being told.
And I have no doubt the USS Kidd is being directed to a specific area of the Indian Ocean to begin their search grid.
The news about the engine telemetry being received by Rolls Royce for four hours after the transponders were turned off, and now the US Navy being directed by the Pentagon to look in a direction totally opposite from where the plane SHOULD be, is a game changer. The Indian Ocean is vast. To even be looking there means we know something that the others either don't know or will not admit to knowing.
Our NSA knows what happened, where it happened and maybe even why it happened. The steady drip, drip of actionable information confirms that.
What has become apparent is that the 239 souls aboard, minus the hijackers,were mere expendable pawns in a very high stakes game.
Don’t they have aircraft at Diego Garcia Island?
Ok, but what if the US knew what happened & when... as far as “if” there could have been people alive in the water??
My guess ... the aircraft, while flying low in order to avoid most RADAR and enroute for fuel at Sri Lanka ... flew too close to the ocean surface.
...pro-golfer’s jet flew for hours before crashing ....
&&&
But nobody had shut off the transponder on that plane.
I am leaning toward that there are no survivors, otherwise more than the Kidd would be dispatched.Otherwise more would be dispatched, especially aerial assets. The Indian Ocean is a very unforgiving place. Even with a gentle water landing(almost impossible)surviving six days in rafts would be almost impossible. I hope I am wrong.
At this point, the debris field would be discovered and then maybe at some future time, more info will be released on what happened.
I can’t shake feeling like I am watching a very carefully choreographed play with many players.
It is almost like the powers that be have to figure out how to spin this whole thing to their best advantage.
An object crashes into the cockpit, taking out most instruments, the crew and the transponder (its in the dash).
Plane flies on autopilot until fuel runs out.
Roger, that.........
If they were flying at that low a level, there is very little room for error.
Don't call me Shirley.
I was working an adjacent sector when Stewart's plane went NORDO (quit talking). He was at an altitude where sudden decompression would certainly get your attention, but still you would have time to descend to breathable altitude.
That they did not descend indicates hypoxia slowly set in, probably from malfunctioning equipment. Investigation showed that pressurization switch was on auto, so pilot error was improbable.
The sector continued trying to contact him to no avail...often not a big deal, just a radio problem. But when he continued climbing through his assigned altitude it was suddenly a VERY big deal, fighter was borrowed from a warning area and vectored in but unable to contact him.
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