I was watching CNN now(I am no fan of CNN but I have to give Erin Burnett credit her program has been very informative these past few days) they had on John Nance I believe his name is, and from what he said, which makes the most sense..to put a plane at that high an altitude could have only been for one purpose, to kill off the passengers since they would not have been able to breathe at that high an altitude..meanwhile, those in the cockpit could have kept on breathing for as long as they needed..whoever was in the cockpit wanted the passengers killed off so they could continue on their way, it was the plane that they wanted
China will hold Malaysia responsible for airport security lapses and poor screening of pilots.
Things were bad at home with one of the two pilots --he was losing his spouse and his kids. Maybe he also has some professional problems with the airline --impending job loss?
He kills the other pilot, then depressurizes the plane to knock out all the passengers. He briefly hears a banging on the cockpit door, but it subsides after 1 minute, then stops totally: the widely-imagined battle royal for survival by the passengers is a non-event. He shuts down both transponders and all comms.
He flies on, on oxygen, contemplating his life, the passengers meanwhile dying from oxygen deprivation. He turns the plane dramatically, beginning a suicidal dive, plunging 40,000 feet in just one minute, only to chicken out.
He flies on for hours, silently trying to summon up the courage to end it all. His indecision is overtaken by his fuel situation, and on vapors he finally slams into the ocean, knocking himself out and dying.
Scenario 2: Hijack
The two Lothario pilots invite the 2 most attractive women on the plane into the cockpit, the better to impress them with their studly technical skill. This habit of theirs had been previously noted by other more radical passengers and quietly passed up the command chain, who dispatched comely young women to "coincidentally" fly in their plane.
During their cockpit party the pilots are overcome by a sedative secreted into their drinks. The women unlock the cockpit door, later accessed by a completely calm and properly trained hijack pilot clicking a pen and holding a clip-board --as with the previous scenario there is no life-or-death fight with the passengers.
He throws aside his silly name-tag and clip-board and immediately depressurizes the plane --the passengers are knocked out and later die. The transponders are turned off, they dive for the deck and turn to their destination four hours away --a 4,000 foot airstrip controlled by their fellow believers.
Immediately upon touching down the spoilers are activated, they apply maximum brake pressure and hit the thrust reversers on the pair of massive engines --the plane lurches, strains and jostles, but rolls to a halt at the very edge of their makeshift runway.
Dented technicals --pickups packed with angry-looking armed men-- stream onto the strip, guiding the behemoth aircraft packed with suffocated passengers to a rocky crag, with burly, bearded men camouflaging the aircraft even as the engines spool down.
Non-minaturized nukes are heavy, and a re-painted civvy a/c like the 777 will make a perfect delivery platform at 3,000 feet on a clear day at 10:00 am over a major city, the better to teach the non-believers with Allah's blinding white flash.
But it could still be a robbery-hijack.
Apparently the authorities have settled on the story that the plane turned west and kept flying for hours.
Funny, this youtube video of radar evidence suggested the sudden jump in altitude ...days ago
Busted! Flight Radar Caught Changing Flight Path of Malaysia Flight 370!. Now has over a million views.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZtz-HVy6c&feature=player_embedded
Thoroughly baffling. The more we learn the less we know.
Today they say the plane quickly climbed to well over its safety level to 45,000 ft. .then suddenly dropped to about 23,000??? Would this effectively kill the passengers ?
It would seem there is a deliberate drip of information and what is provided is conflicting and contradictory.
We’re told the manifest has now been completely vetted and no possible terrorists were aboard. Is this true?
It’s really unsettling to have an extraordinary event occur with barely any facts disclosed to the public.
Still don’t think it was the pilots.
Still standing on my limb :)
I suspect there was a fight in the cockpit though.
I also think it was shot down. It strikes me that the Malaysian government seems totally uncoordinated, and very guarded, about what they are releasing. This often happens when lies are not yet coordinated.
I suspect it was hijacked, the two friendly Malaysian pilots killed or incapacitated with the rest of the flight crew and passengers, and then once some government discovered what was happening, they nailed that sucker with a A2A missile.
I would guess after seeing a rapid ascent to 45000 ft+, they figured all the passengers were dead anyway, may as well take it out.
Would the range be significantly more if the passengers were somehow dumped?
It seems to me that there is a lot of discussion about the altitude variation of the missing 777 without any verification of how the Malaysian military made that determination. A land based radar would only get primary returns over the ocean out to about 250 miles (maybe) but the radar would only show position, not altitude. Altitude is reported via the transponder, which was supposedly turned off. So how did the military determine the aircraft altitude? A ship based radar might have some chance of estimating altitude from a position near the aircraft, but even that’s doubtful. So, how credible is the assertion of the Malaysian military absent any qualifying information?
If I’m off base on this, someone please set me straight.
Notice that the "two routes" are in the same arc which forms a circle. This is likely because at the center of the circle is where the gyosyncronous satellite associated with "tracking" the aircraft (i.e., receiving the "pings") is located Or, actually hundreds of miles above that point, to be accurate. The arc is the limit of receptivity, so that what they are trying to say is that the last pinging came from within that circle, not that the aircraft went on one of two routes that form perfect arcs.