Originally Posted by
HTBH
First.... I can't take much more of Wolf Blitzer. He's gotta go. Painful to listen to his "expertise".
Second.... How about an out of control avionics or electrical fire at altitude? Improper maintenance or something leads to a fire that takes out an essential bus that has the primary radios and transponder on it (or they quickly start pulling circuit breakers when smoke or flames enter cockpit), they make a turn to try to divert but are overcome by smoke or fire which takes out passengers as well. The San Fran crash shows the 777 can take a lot of damage but stay together for a while (perhaps while on fire). Fire burns itself out as they climb or run out of oxygen (or maybe it just keeps smoldering/burning) but plane keeps flying off autopilot and makes the altitude changes shown as it flounders around until it just runs out if gas or belly lands intact into the ocean and eventually sinks with no ELT going off.
Thoughts? Just an option that doesn't involve suicide,terrorism, aliens, or another season of Lost.
This is what I suspect. Fire in the E & E bay (or whatever they call the main electronics bay on a 777). I believe in the 747-400 and 777, this bay is in front of the forward cargo bay, and under or just aft of the cockpit. Maybe fire caused by adjacent hazardous cargo in the cargo hold, if it was near the E&E bay? (UPS 6) Causes a loss of major electrical busses. Happened to Swissair 111; UPS 6.
While dealing with loss of electronics, crew starts a turn for an emergency return to Kuala Lampur. Midway through the turn, overcome by toxic fumes, controls released.
The 777 is a fly-by-wire airplane. Now unguided, it will fly at at a trimmed airspeed, I think (can't remember. The A-320 flies at 1-g, but I think Boeing went with airspeed...been too long since 777 school, and I never flew the airplane...got bumped post 9-11).
If it is airspeed-trimmed, it will climb and descend in a phugoid (sort-of) until it runs out of fuel, or hits something.
I don't see how the Malaysian officials or news media are jumping on the statement "the transponder and ACARS were deliberately turned off..." To say so with certainty would require a "Being turned OFF signal," not just a sudden or progressive loss of signal.
For the "deliberate pilot action" crowd, I would say a guy with 18,000 hours and 33 years at the company isn't a likely suspect. A 27 year old who likes to invite good looking women in the cockpit isn't a likely suspect either.