Posted on 03/14/2014 5:04:50 AM PDT by Kaslin
One intelligence community source told me the other day that he believed it was possible that Malaysian flight 370 would be found, intact because the plane had not crashed but had been hijacked for unknown reasons.
He may have been right. From MarketWatch:
U.S. counterterrorism officials are pursuing the possibility that a pilot or someone else on board the plane may have diverted it toward an undisclosed location after intentionally turning off the jetliner’s transponders to avoid radar detection, according to one person tracking the probe.
And:
But the huge uncertainty about where the plane was headed, and why it continued flying so long without working transponders, has raised theories among investigators that the aircraft may have been commandeered for a reason that appears unclear to U.S. authorities. Some of those theories have been laid out to national security officials and senior personnel from various U.S. agencies, according to one person familiar with the matter.
But here’s where it gets really interesting…and scary:
At one briefing, according to this person, officials were told investigators are actively pursuing the notion that the plane was diverted “with the intention of using it later for another purpose.”
Another purpose? Perhaps as a giant, human-guided, suicide missile?
At the time of my conversation with my intel source I advised him to keep it to himself and we both laughed, nervously.
I’m more nervous now.
After this story came out, Malaysian officials of disputed the fact that the plane continue transmitting data, and the story was corrected as to the exact nature of the data. Still they insist the data was still available. American officials still believe that it's possible that the plane could've disappeared to be used for other purposes. They are still pursuing all angles, and have not ruled out the plane was diverted.
In part that's because two of data transmitters were turned off at separate times, which would indicate that there wasn't some sort of critical malfunction or catastrophic break up in midair. And if the plane continued to fly for 4 to 5 hours, it might've made 2500 to 3000 miles. Frankly it could be anywhere from the Australian desert to somewhere in Pakistan, although practically speaking that might've been difficult.
Interestingly, I spoke with one political official late last night who told me that his sources in the defense community are being unusually tight lipped about the plane.
He called them "a stonewall."
Again, this is all just informed speculation on my part.
But given the finger-pointing that's going on between Malaysia, China and the United States there seems to be more than mild disagreement about what this could possibly mean.
That could mean something sinister is afoot. Or it could just be a case of plain old bureaucratic incompetence.
I would like to say that the bureaucratic incompetence case would be somewhat reassuring. But one thing that we've learned from 9/11 through the Boston bombing is that even in something sinister, bureaucratic incompetence is usually at play.
Landed in Iran. Being fitted w a nuclear device. Will be used against us or Israel.
wow... who coulda thunk it... you can avoid radar just by turning off that transponder thingy
seriously, is everyone in the media stupid?
^^^^ Yes ^^^^
Still an outside chance it is bound for Russia...
I think what we’re seeing from the Malaysians is that they have no serious, unified, and, coherent disaster response ability right now. Various Malaysian agencies are conducting their own independent investigations, making various statements about their efforts, and, often contradicting each other in the process.
The Chinese? Those sat’ pics were weird and I don’t know whether they were truly trying to help with this search or just making some kind of PR effort. Their internal images should have been much better and more indicative than the ones they released and yet there seemed to be nothing ultimately to them. I don’t get that yet.
The U.S.? I think caught off-foot and unprepared to assist. We keep waiting for the avalanche of intelligence which we all know should be coming forth and yet very little so far. In this digital age a week might as well be a decade for entities that are use to real time, 24/7 information on call in making their decisions.
+ 1, and "MarketWatch" isn't even close to becoming a reliable news source.
In much of that area there are gaps in radar coverage. And, turning off the unique transponder id number removes the ac identification entirely, making it possible to be lost in “clutter.”
Now, I’m not saying that it is so, but as a pilot, I can assure you that turning off the transponder has real consequences.
The idea of hijacking the aircraft and using it as a flying bomb is attractive. But there are thousands of surplus airliners in storage all over the world. Wouldn’t it be easier to simply buy and return to service an airliner from storage rather than go through the trouble of hijacking a new aircraft?
Yes, but the feature within the engines that sends a signal to Rolls Royce once the plane is flying cannot be turned off. If anyone tries to fly the plane, Rolls Royce will know it.
Hysteria often trumps logic.
Iran has all sorts of Airbus wide-bodies in their state run airline. If that was their plan why not just use one of those?
I would agree it could make identification difficult ... but it wouldn’t make your radar signature disappear. your blip would still exist
from what I’ve been able to gather, the ‘blip’ disappeared not just the identification
of course, that info was also reported by the same media types... so it could be that the transponder Id disappeared, not the blip
What a rarity on freerepublic, someone who understands my point.
Also the idea might work if the whole world thought the plan had crashed. But now that suspicion has changed to it being hijacked and flown somewhere then that kind of minimizes it's usefulness. Everyone is looking for it now, and are on the lookout for what it might be used for.
It crashed. Nothing else makes sense. If you want a jumbo jet why take one full of passengers? If it was ransom why hasnt there been a ransom note and where did it land? There are also much easier ways of getting hostages. Could have been a hijacking gone wrong or a suicide bomber but that plane is wreckage.
If this plane is not on the bottom of the ocean, then it is almost certainly being prepped to deliver a nuke.
If that's the case, the authors of the act wish to remain anonymous.
what I find interesting about that is the info stream doesn’t contain time and gps location along with it. why wouldn’t it these days?
anyone know if it’s possible for gps chips to receive satellite signals while the engines are running? or would they interfere?
Assuming Iran is behind it, an indication that Iran wants plausible deniability. Wanting their cake and eat it too, they want to kill millions and spread radioactivity, while not getting hit back.
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