Why don't we know this? Ground radar doesn't know where the plane is. Orbiting satellites don't know where the plane is. Search crews can't find any wreckage. Fishermen/people on the ground did not see the plane go down. How can an enormous 777-200ER, with a wingspan of 60.9 meters, vanish into thin air?
The pilots did not radio a mayday. The passengers did not phone their loved ones. This model has two transponders, neither of which are functioning. Even if the plane became suddenly depressurized, rendering passengers and crew unconscious or dead, and subsequently plunged into the sea in a mist of tiny pieces and vaporization, wouldn't there be a fuel slick?
I read this morning a theory that the plane has been hijacked for 'later use'. How can a bad guy hide a 777? It's not as if he can land it at some remote jungle airstrip; it's 63.7 meters long and requires a minimum runway distance of 3,380 meters.
So. Where is the plane?
The search grid, courtesy of WaPo.
ReplyDeleteIt's not in the sky.
ReplyDeleteLost
ReplyDeleteExtremely very weird. The Malaysians are all over the place with denials and then China released satellite pics by mistake??? WTF?
ReplyDeletemainly, "teh plane" is sucking up media space that might be applied to more important things in the USA...unowadahmeen?
ReplyDeleteSorry about the plane, but we know squat...so why is it on the news 24/7 every day? So we can all agree we know squat?
What is happening that we are missing?
Well hello Crimea!
Baltics are next.
DeleteBuh Bye Latvia. See ya, Estonia. Been real, Lithuania.
You all fucked up. You trusted us.
Of course the plane is pretty interesting, to be fair.
Delete"When you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras."
Thing is, "horse" has pretty much been completely excluded by now. We're looking at zebras.
Yes aridog, you're right. The news is 24/7 plane plane plane. Yackity yackity yak. Meanwhile, Putin grabs Crimea, whispers "boo!" at Obama, and Obama squeals and poops his underoos.
DeleteIt's scary. We're watching that first domino teetering.
And speaking of the plane: does anyone else think that the US spooks know EXACTLY where it is? Obama may not be in the loop, but I'll bet the NSA dudes have a clue.
ReplyDeleteIf they do - and I suspect they might - we'll never know. To do so would divulge our intel capabilities.
ReplyDeletePlus, enough time has passed that a billion or so Chinese would be wicked pissed to find out we knew all along what happened to their 158 fellow countrymen on that flight.
My husband sent me this article about the disappearance. It sounds pretty credible to me, here is a link if anyone is interested.
ReplyDeleteGreat article florrie. I wouldn't doubt that this is exactly what happened.
Delete"Because of the speed of the impact (about 700 feet per second) when it hit the water, the nose of the 200 foot airliner would have met the tail in just under 1/3 of a second."
Wow. The video is jaw-dropping too.
Very interesting article. And I am pleased to report that I survived two trans-continental flights this week in a 777-200.
DeleteOne problem with this: I know of no way the pilots could have contacted the Malaysian government without every spy agency in the world listening in.
DeleteThe radios on the plane wouldn't reach that far. The frequencies are all open and monitored; they are not encrypted. Cell phones won't work. I doubt even a sat phone would work inside a plane. Even then, again, sat comms are wide open (Al Qaida used to be big users of sat phones, till we started droning anyone who picked one up).
None of this is much beyond the capacity of the Chinese to monitor, either.
The simplest explanation is that the pilot had a psychotic break. Yes, Ibrahim's sentencing was probably part of it. So was the fact that his wife left him. (And his mistress, too, in one report).
Why did they leave him? Maybe he was starting to go nuts. These things can cascade...