Shakespeare is an old dead white guy. Today's western lit majors are studying fity cent.

 

And it shows...

GF

 

It seems impossible (with sophisticated Nav systems) that we have a modern day "Wrong Way Corrigan."

Douglas Corrigan (January 22, 1907 – December 9, 1995) was an American aviator born in Galveston, Texas. He was nicknamed "Wrong Way" in 1938. After a transcontinental flight from Long Beach, California, to New York, he flew from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, to Ireland, though his flight plan was filed to return to Long Beach. He claimed his unauthorized flight was due to a navigational error, caused by heavy cloud cover that obscured landmarks and low-light conditions, causing him to misread his compass.

The 777 was supposed to fly about 2,500 miles NE and it looks like it may have flown 2,500 miles SW.

 

More than likely, Corrigan's flight to Ireland was deliberate (and foolish). He stuck to his story...

Douglas Corrigan, 88, Dies - Wrong-Way Trip Was the Right Way toCelebrity as an Aviator - NYTimes.com

 

Tom. I bet you remember A-14 sextants in an astrodome, fixed card ADF approaches, pressure pattern navigation and Loran "A". They got it too easy today.

 

Fundamental premise here: SOMETHING unlikely happened, the fact that a 777 vanished tells us that. Occam's Razor applies....

One unlikely event is a given. But more than one unlikely event is...exceedingly unlikely.

So stick with explanations that don't require multiple improbable links in the chain. Also try to focus on the most straight-forward explanation.

Once you determine what the improbable event was, the other links in the chain should fall right into place without any real stretching of the imagination...


Plausible, even the best explanation since there is no obvious terror motive motive here...

Right up until it appeared that someone intentionally programmed and executed a flight plan to points far to the west. I'm not sure if there would be better emergency divert fields on the mainland without having to cross the peninsula.

They can't do that.

Exceedingly unlikely. Terrorists are pretty good at KISS, because their front-line operators (suicidal by nature) are generally stupid, drugged, or both.

I suppose it's remotely possibly that this was the original intent, but if it was it failed. If they were going to do this they would have turned the plane as quick as they could fuel it rather than wait around for someone to find (and finish) them. The obvious target for this very long range airplane would be the US and we would not hesitate to take it out regardless of where the airplane was located.

That would be two unlikely events, and given the circumstances the responsible country would have confessed...they would have been well within their rights, and the US would have certainly shot this thing down if it came anywhere near our ADIZ, probably in international airspace.

Land, maybe. Without being detected? Less likely.


Probably the most plausible terror explanation, since there is a motive. But odds are that any Chinese dissidents would stick to Chinese targets to avoid turning world-opinion against their cause. Also would avoid attacking their fellow muslims for the same reason.

Back to implausible. To pull off a landing, particularly at a remote possibly small runway would really require a trained 777 pilot. The pilots on the aircraft may have been muslim, but they weren't Uighur.


Very difficult to pull off without military radar (or GCI) and high-speed sprint capability. Phenomenal luck would be required just to achieve the intercept and then it would take a skilled pilot (probably with military experience) to stay close enough.

Ledgerwood is not a professional pilot or a military pilot. He may have some experience with video games.


IMO, we are looking at two scenarios, but both with the same ending. The best place to hide a 777 from global scrutiny is the bottom of the ocean...

1. Systems failures (probably due to fire) on the airplane led to loss of comms and an attempt to return to land. The aircraft may have been flown to high altitude and the cabin dumped in order to combat the fire. The crew (and pax) become incapacitated by smoke or lack of air and the airplane flies on until it runs out of fuel (or maybe the CG change caused by fuel burn causes the plane to crash).

The big problem here is that the plane seemed to be on AP flying a new FMS route that had nothing to do with the original flight plan. Consensus seems to be that a trained 777 pilot would be required to make this change. It's possible the crew did this to head back to land but really more expert analysis is needed to determine the when and how of the FMS changes.

2. Pilot malign action. Motive? I would guess personal motives, because terrorism is not really served by making the plane vanish over the open ocean.

However it's possible that a malign actor pilot had terror intentions but while attempting to use altitude to disable everyone in the cabin inadvertently disabled himself as well...and the plane flew on. This last is plausible because there are aspects of very-high altitude physiology that the average airline pilot might not understand.

 

Thank you for your feedback. I am merely presenting ideas that have been circulating the web for exactly this purpose, to get a response explaining why the ideas may or may not be plausible. I did not make up these theories, of course. Thank you again for your response.

 

Rickair777-

Thank you so much for your extensive and sensible reply. Your input is much appreciated.

 

Thank you for the link.

 

Airliners.net got it all figured out. You see MH370 was flown to a secret maintenance base in Australia to get a new business class configuration. The transponder was reprogrammed for new IFE options and that's why the plane is missing. Also I think the the new American paint job was a factor.