There was some really good background information on this subject in something I read the day after MH370 went missing. may have been on Wiki... It talked about smaller countries that have historically designated an investigation authority. It specifically mentioned that the Canadians took control of the Swiss/Halifax affair, yet after the downing of Korean 007, the Korean govt. chose to ask the FAA for help and designated NTSB in charge of the accident.

I do not intend to make this a political argument, because I don't care to win or loose one, but I've been telling my Brother-in-Law whom I'm vacationing with, that the administration is remiss in not putting greater pressure on Malaysia to act like Korea did. I'm not trying to tell anyone here that...

Blame my global domination, capitalist, bow to the almighty dollar views, but that aircraft had an American, along with American business interests onboard. More importantly, it was manufactured by a U.S. corporation and likely sold with similar "conditional vendor" constraints as so many of their other products. To protect both American jobs and the reputation of a major American employer and manufacturer, it is my opinion that our agencies should have (and maybe to an extent they tried to) persuade a turnover.

new guy? 2850 posts?

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

TonyC, I wasn't jumping to any conclusions. The BBC reported the next morning that Malaysian officials didn't alert anyone until after the airplane didn't arrive at its destination. How is that inappropriate? Also, it has been repeatedly stated that his question is beyond ridiculous. The airplane left Malaysian ATC airspace in 40 minutes. it is reasonable to assume that it took no more than another hour to leave the military's radar after traveling on a "known international route." Why should they waste an incredible amount of money scrambling fighters for a non-threat assuming any were actually available to be scrambled. I would be willing to bet money there weren't. If it weren't for Payne Stewart's plane being in the vicinity of a training sortie, no one would have ever known what happened to him.

So, why keep asking "what if" if it's a completely irrelevant scenario? What if the plane entered a hold and ran out of gas over the mainland? Who cares? What if it went all the way to Europe and they scrambled European fighters? Why aren't we asking those questions? It's because they are irrelevant and tell us nothing about the current situation.

And so it begins...

Captain Bligh,

While I don't entirely disagree with your aim, the US has limited ability to pressure the Malaysia government and the Malaysians, having introduced local politics into it, have little desire to have the US involved. The story of the captain and Anwar Ibrahim is a smoke screen to divert attention. They don't want the US to go blowing away the smoke and, frankly, Dept of State probably doesn't either.

GF

I didn't say you were jumping to conclusions -- I said you were contradicting yourself.

You said that anything other than those two conclusions was irresponsible -- then you reached another conclusion.


Show me the one post where it was stated that his question is beyond ridiculous.


We should all care, because then we'd be able to narrow down the search area. <DUH>

I guess you should have one of those badge thingies over your Avatar so everyone will know when the conversation is supposed to be over.



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When speculation has run its course there is always time to chew on the mods for any imagined slight.

Some of us can carry a gunnysack full of grudges for years.

Maybe we can talk about ALPA for a while.

What if..... in a collaborative effort with the financier of the stollen passport holders, the aircraft was stolen for a purpose? Like a dirty bomb or nuclear device delivery vehicle?

I always said, when I flew it inserting troops to the gulf, was that it was the perfect bomber platform. It could fly so high and fast that NATO fighters that attempted to intercept us for practice (which was allowed since we were using CRAFT mission call signs) often couldn't reach us. Especially ones form EU nations with limited range and airspace. We would pass overhead at 37,000 feet doing .84 mach and they just couldn't close the distance given what they had to work with. The airplane has the ability to haul/deliver 100,000 pounds of payload an incredible distance. If terrorists stole it for a suicide mission, or imagine malicious intent, pick a city and it's gone. There's no way anyone in most of the governments in the world, has the testosterone to shoot down a civilian airliner given the history of how well that's worked in the past, nor with the current administrations at the helm of western governments.

Even if terrorists or a foreign power just landed a 777 full of commandos somewhere after an intercept and started shooting their way out of the airplane, there isn't a civilian airport in the world that would be prepared for it. This is one of the problems with exporting technology for the sake of $$$$$, hoping to replace the cash flow from previously exported manufacturing jobs.

Here's the thing, there's almost always a business man or two that have several global sat phones, one in their pocket one in a briefcase. Unless they killed everyone enroute, someone would make a call. As this story unfolds however; I think most people should hope and pray it crashed.

Mazster is the new guy who has received the warm welcome.

I was speaking in his defense.





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