Where's that f***ing plane?

[aka Dus]

Is it on the southern arc the satellite received the ping on?

 

Hopefully it's not another wild goose chase.

[Leo No.8]

Is it on the southern arc the satellite received the ping on?

 

Hopefully it's not another wild goose chase.

 

To be honest, hopefully it is another wild goose chase and the plane is on land somewhere remote but the passengers are safe. I realise the chances are incredibly low, but its what I'm hoping for anyway.

[matty]

oh dear, another foreign government not up to British standard?

I now have a very accurate watch.

Edited March 20, 2014 by matty

[aka Dus]

To be honest, hopefully it is another wild goose chase and the plane is on land somewhere remote but the passengers are safe. I realise the chances are incredibly low, but its what I'm hoping for anyway.

 

Well yeah, but that's not going to happen.

[John am Rhein]

I now have a very accurate watch.

 

russian clocks are always right!!

[Des]

oh dear, another foreign government not up to British standard?

 

Haha.

[Nerik]

If it is indeed the wreckage, the mind boggles as to why the aircraft ended up so far off course.

[surf]

If it is indeed the wreckage, the mind boggles as to why the aircraft ended up so far off course.

 

Indeed. If it was hijacked then what was the purpose. Where were they taking it? Is there anywhere of interest on the "southern arc" they might have wanted to get to?

[Kite]

Indeed. If it was hijacked then what was the purpose. Where were they taking it? Is there anywhere of interest on the "southern arc" they might have wanted to get to?

Australia? The fact that the fragments spotted in the sea were south west of Perth though would seem odd - sea currents there (viz wiki) are sweeping up from the south so would surely be pushing debris up from the Antartica region rather than down from the Indian Ocean? Doesn't seem to be any land mass to the west of Perth either...

[downunder]

If it is indeed the wreckage, the mind boggles as to why the aircraft ended up so far off course.

 

The only thing I can think of is it used the same GPS system as Andre Wisdom.

[Benzo-13]

Indeed. If it was hijacked then what was the purpose. Where were they taking it? Is there anywhere of interest on the "southern arc" they might have wanted to get to?

The Diego Garcia atoll?

[aka Dus]

Obvious answer seems to be that regardless of why and how the big left turn was made, the plane ended up flying effectively on autopilot for some hours, no?

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

The only thing I can think of is it used the same GPS system as Andre Wisdom.

 

[Rimbeux]

Obvious answer seems to be that regardless of why and how the big left turn was made, the plane ended up flying effectively on autopilot for some hours, no?

 

Not necessarily, one line of thought is that it could have flown for hours, and it could have been on auto pilot. All that's known is the change of course and the comms being turned off

[surf]

what about the 40,000 foot thingy? did it really go that high? if it did, what would it do to people on board?

[Nerik]

Well planes are always flown on autopilot when in cruise. Whether it flew in that direction with no one at the controls is the question. Could be, but if the crew were both incapacitated for what seems to be 5hrs plus, what caused it? A raging fire etc. would have brought down the aircraft much sooner I'd say. Depressurization and them not donning their masks and not descending maybe.

[surf]

someone in the cockpit programmed the direction of the plane

 

 

if it was one of the pilots, then you'd think there wasn't a need to cause depressurisation cause the passengers couldn't do anything (if they were even aware what was going on)

if it was done under duress then that might explain the attempt to depressurise. perhaps that attempt worked, but killed everyone on board?

 

it certainly seems that the hijacking attempt didn't work, as nothing appears to have been done with the plane

[Nerik]

Not too sure the direction was programmed in yet. It could have just been a heading change. The depressurisation I am referring too would not be intentional but one that happened due to a failure in the system. It had happened in Greece with the Helios plane that ended up crashing into a mountain.

[aka Dus]

And Payne Stweart's plane.

[Nerik]

Yep that one too. Still depressurisation alone seems to simple an explanation at this stage. So many "facts" have been put forward that it is indeed a baffling case. Transponder going off, ACARS too etc. etc. The sooner they find the wreckage the better.

[Stanley Leisure]

Looks like it may have turned up...

 

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26697048#TWEET1079490

Edited March 22, 2014 by Stanley Leisure

[BG]

A friend of mine - a 777 pilot for BA - thinks most likely scenario is fire closing down comms and worsening from there. But he says there is so much uncertainty that likely more than a year until what really happened is really established.

[aka Dus]

Will take a year to find the black box and another for the report, minimum.

[Nerik]

I doubt that with a fire on board that was uncontrollable it could have flown for 5hrs. Still does not explain why it went so far south (if the debris spotted is in fact the plane's wreckage).

[Leo No.8]

Looks like they have been finding stuff in this search area - apparently a couple of objects have been marked with a smoke marker, and a ship should be picking them up within a few hours, and a Chinese plane has spotted other suspected debris. Real mystery this whole thing how its turned up here.

Edited March 24, 2014 by Leo No.8