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  #31  
Old 9th March 2014, 05:12 PM
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Philip Argy Philip Argy is offline
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Question Pitot freezing?

Would pitot freezing explain altitude going from 37,000 to 0 with no speed reduction? It seems more likely than controlled flight into the sea? Or perhaps there were fumes of some kind and the crew were overcome? Or an undetected hypoxia event?

The lack of flotsam and jetsam suggests (to me anyway) that the a/c did not disintegrate at high altitude and is more likely to have hit in one piece, similar to AF447. Wing separation pre-impact might explain distance between fuel slick locations.

Also now seems that contact was lost only 40 minutes out of KL but MAS was not told because no one wanted to raise a false alarm until all equipment malfunction explanations had been eliminated. I'd have thought immediate contact with MAS should have occurred so they could at least try ACARS or other alternative means of contact.

Really just curiouser and curiouser ...
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  #32  
Old 9th March 2014, 05:27 PM
steve k steve k is offline
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Sadly I think this may be a case of "Crew Misadventure" I have the gut feeling it is, but I am no expert on these matters, what saddens me is I have catered that and 16 other Malaysia 777.200's and crews generally were really nice, perhaps I met the pilots at some stage in 3.5 years here in Adelaide. I do hope the aircraft is found to bring closure to the grieving families. Tragic start to 2014 after really low fatality rates in aviation.
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  #33  
Old 9th March 2014, 05:46 PM
Henning S Henning S is offline
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I think the final altitude of 0ft on FR24 is not correct. It means the aircraft would have had to transmit this altitude and an ADS-B receiver would have had to receive it. But as you know the distance over which ADS-B signals can be received depend on line-of-sight connection and at 0ft this line of sight is not really long.
If this incident was similar to AF447 and the plane would have dropped, it would still have transmitted ADS-B messages that show a change in speed or altitude. So this seems very unlikely to me.
The only two reasons I can think of that cause a plane to not transmit any more signals are that the transponder has been switched off intentionally or an explosion that destroyed at least the transponder and maybe the entire plane.

The latest reports that the aircraft might have turned after it stopped reporting its position may indicate an intentionally switched off transponder, maybe by a hijacker.
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  #34  
Old 9th March 2014, 05:50 PM
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Montague S Montague S is offline
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How on earth would a hijacker even get into the flight deck? The plane was aloft not more than an hour, and the pilots would've been able to communicate the situation if someone was trying to access the flight deck. I don't know, but terrorism by entering the flight deck doesn't seem plausible unless it was carried out by the flight crew itself.
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  #35  
Old 9th March 2014, 06:19 PM
Nigel C Nigel C is offline
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What surprises me is that no wreckage has been located. No lifejackets, no baggage, no aircraft bits, nothing but an oil slick. If the aircraft was flown into the water, or it disintegrated above the water, then surely there should be more than just an oil slick as evidence?

And surely there were fishing vessels out that night that might have seen or heard something? Weather reports suggested that conditions were pretty good. A B777 is hardly a small thing to hide!!!

But we can speculate all we like, even hypothesise til the cows come home if it makes us all feel better. They'll find it sooner or later, and then we'll get the real answers we're all looking for.
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  #36  
Old 9th March 2014, 06:21 PM
Henning S Henning S is offline
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Montague S, I totally agree with you.
So the only options are that one of the people on the flight deck actually switched the transponder of to hijack the plane (like it recently happend).
Or there was an explosion. This might have been either a terrorist attack or some non-terrorist reason.
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  #37  
Old 9th March 2014, 06:24 PM
Henning S Henning S is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nigel C View Post
What surprises me is that no wreckage has been located. No lifejackets, no baggage, no aircraft bits, nothing but an oil slick. If the aircraft was flown into the water, or it disintegrated above the water, then surely there should be more than just an oil slick as evidence?

And surely there were fishing vessels out that night that might have seen or heard something? Weather reports suggested that conditions were pretty good. A B777 is hardly a small thing to hide!!!
Yes, that surprises me as well. If there was an explosion then there would have to be a lot of things floating around in the ocean.

Any other ideas why the transponder could have stopped transmitting?

The more you try to explain the disappearence of this flight the more mysterious it becomes.
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  #38  
Old 9th March 2014, 06:31 PM
Henning S Henning S is offline
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BBC just wrote that the tickets that were purchased using the stolen passports were booked at the same time.

"The BBC has confirmed that a man falsely using an Italian passport and a man falsely using an Austrian passport purchased tickets at the same time, and were both booked on the same onward flight from Beijing to Europe on Saturday.

Both had purchased their tickets from China Southern Airlines, which shared the flight with Malaysia Airlines, and they had consecutive ticket numbers."

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26502843
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  #39  
Old 9th March 2014, 06:35 PM
Adam P. Adam P. is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Greg Hyde View Post
Why didn't Vietnam/Chinese ATC raise an alert when the aircraft:

* failed to report at way points
* could no longer be seen on radar
How do you know they didn't?
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  #40  
Old 9th March 2014, 07:27 PM
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Grahame Hutchison Grahame Hutchison is offline
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Interesting development with the two passengers travelling on false passports. Why would they book on the same flight to Europe on Saturday, if they intended to hijack or destroy the aircraft. Maybe this is just illegal use of passports, and unrelated to the accident.
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