Hopscotch

An interesting take on things -

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...bnoocvoAoufgCk

Firefighter

Did they ever announce where the captains “sim” flight went? Did it go off course in the Indian Ocean, or did it follow the exact path?

I personally believe that the crew made a ditching. Only the flap was found with damage to the sides. Perhaps it was retracted for a crash landing?

ShyGuy

A ditching in the middle of the Indian Ocean? After turning the aircraft several times away from all land, transponder on stby, and no radio calls?


No

badflaps

Did they totally disqualify the fisherman who saw a large airplane at low level, trailing smoke?

kaputt

The most amazing thing to me is that not one country in that region scrambled fighters to intercept this jet, especially in the post 9/11 world. Or at the very least asked from immediate help from one of the larger nations in the region. I’m sure Australia could have thrown something together, and I bet the US Navy was somewhere in the region.

But there should have been jets on this thing almost immediately, and with the help of some tankers they could have tracked it until it went down and then maybe we don’t have this mystery.

Even if they do someday find the wreck, I’m not sure if they can actually solve what happened. The flight recorders and CVR won’t last forever on the sea floor, and are very likely already unreadable.

Excargodog

I think you have a SERIOUS misunderstanding as to the number of square miles in the area (and possibly the world) and the number of military aircraft in existence, far less the TINY number that are on alert and capable of being generated in any reasonable timeframe on no notice.

Australia, for example, has a land area of 3 million miles. The Australian Air Force has - all types - approximately 260 aircraft. Sydney is 4100 miles from Kuala Lumpur.

The US Navy struggles to keep one (1) carrier deployed in the Arabian Sea. The Arabian Sea is 4000 miles from Malaysia.

https://news.usni.org/category/fleet-tracker

A carrier group will typically have 65-70 aircraft total.

Even had there been timely notification, it woukd have taken eight hours for US or Australian military aircraft to get to the area of the flight, and that’s assuming long range tanker support was available which, at least for the US military, would not have been the case.

It’s a big friggin’ world out there.

galaxy flyer

Further, the RAAF no longer deploys to Butterworth. Its F-18 bases are in Queensland and NSW with limited deployments to N.T. All thousands of miles away. Seriously doubt, Malaysia, Vietnam or Thailand has a QRA. Singapore might.


Gf

rickair7777

Beyond ludicrous.

Most folks cannot even begin to comprehend how vast the south pacific is. Most fighters have a very limited combat radius without airborne refueling, which takes lengthy advance coordination to arrange.

Defensive fighter capability (interception) defends a specific area or border. AR is typically not required because the fighters are based close to the defended area. Response time in minutes. If the missing flight penetrated the wrong ADIZ, it could have been intercepted by fighters staged for that purpose.

Long-range offensive/strike ops require massive, complex coordination which takes 72-96 hours to arrange. That's what AR is used for.

An aerial search would utilize long-range/long-endurance patrol aircraft, and that's exactly what happened... the next day.

Also nobody in Oz or the USN likely even knew about this until they turned on CNN the next morning. Their job is not to patrol the vast reaches of the Pacific for lost jets. The ATC facilities which lost contact with MH don't have a red-phone to the pentagon.

That said, if it had approached a US ADIZ, it certainly would have been detected, transponder or not, and intercepted.

Firefighter

Didn’t the captain report leveling off at their assigned altitude? I heard that’s not normal? Perhaps it was his way of crying out for help after being hijacked? I mean the flight doesn’t fit the narrative of pilot suicide. I’m thinking a controlled landing was attempted. Never said it was went successful. Strange how the only piece recovered is a flap. And it would make sense if it was retracted. And who’s to say hijackers didn’t make their way into the cockpit by starting a fire, then getting out of control? Sure sounds a lot more believable than the depressurized with pilot still somehow flying story

rickair7777

Oceanic out of radar, no real harm in reporting assigned altitude via radio. Some pilots report things they don't have to, I personally find it annoying because it clogs up the radio but there's nothing that says you can't communicate additional info to ATC.

No.

1. No way to predict how the plane would come apart on impact, especially if you have no idea of arrival speed/attitude

2. Different objects have different shapes and densities, and thus float differently and are affected by currents and winds differently.

3. It's a very big ocean out there, so #2 would be amplified by time and distance... you could end with parts on different continents.

You're way overthinking this.

It was either pilot suicide (which I strongly doubted at first but now don't see any other obvious answer) or just possibly an innocent onboard fire.

The fire *might* just explain the loss of avionics and incapacitation of crew & pax. In the process of fire fighting, electrical buses would likely have been dumped, and depressurizing the ship is one way to fight an out-of-control fire, especially if you have nowhere to land immediately. If crew oxygen failed or ran out, the crew might have inadvertently incapacitated themselves in the process. But it's still a stretch.

Pilot suicide only requires one anomaly: Suicidal Pilot.

The fire scenario requires several anomalies: Fire + loss of avionics + loss of cabin pressure + no comms/mayday + pilots succumb to low cabin pressure (they have O2 and and know to use it).

Hijacking is even more improbable... hijackers would have taken the plane somewhere and claimed credit. If they just wanted to bring the plane down they would have used a bomb, that's a lot easier than hijacking. If the crew regained control they would have landed somewhere or at least communicated before ditching.