Boeing 777 Missing Over Vietnamese Airspace

[PrisonerOfHope]

Malaysia Airlines loses contact with plane en route to Beijing with 239 aboard




A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing over the South China Sea on Saturday, prompting China to send ships to scour the water for possible wreckage.

The airline, speaking several hours after the plane had been due to land in the Chinese capital, said it was still too early so say whether the aircraft had crashed. It said there had been no distress signal and it cited early speculation that the plane may have landed in Nanming in southern China.

As news of the disappearance filtered through to distraught friends and relatives who had been waiting for the flight to arrive in Beijing, Malaysia Airline said it was still investigating and took no questions at a brief news conference.
"Our team is currently calling the next-of-kin of passengers and crew," the airlines' group chief executive officer, Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, said in a statement. "Focus of the airline is to work with the emergency responders and authorities and mobilize its full support."

"Our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew and their family members," he said.

The airline said that the Boeing 777-200 aircraft had 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members on board.

It said the passengers were of 13 different nationalities, including 153 from China and four from the United States.

Flight MH370 departed from Kuala Lumpur at 12:41 a.m. Saturday local time, according to a statement from the airline. It was scheduled to land in Beijing at 6:30 a.m.

The plane last had contact with air traffic controllers two hours after it took off 120 nautical miles off the east coast of the Malaysian town of Kota Bharu, the airline said on Saturday.

Malaysian and Vietnamese authorities were working jointly on search operations in the area. China has dispatched two maritime rescue ships to the South China Sea to help in rescue work, state television reported.

An official at the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said the plane had failed to check in as scheduled while it was flying over the sea between Malaysia and Ho Chi Minh City.

"Its code didn't appear in our system," Bui Van Vo, the authority's flight control department manager, told Reuters by telephone.

China's official Xinhua news agency also quoted the Civil Aviation Administration of China as saying the flight lost contact while flying through Vietnamese airspace.

No signal had been picked up from the plane in Vietnam, a Vietnamese rescue official said on Saturday.

"We have been seeking but no signal from the plane yet," Pham Hien, director of a Vietnam maritime search and rescue coordination center in Vung Tau, told Reuters by telephone.

Vietnamese and Chinese media had reported that a signal from the plane had been picked up. The reports did not identify what kind of signal.

"The information on local media about the signal near the Cape Ca Mau was inaccurate," Pham said.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters, "We are extremely worried. We are doing all we can to get details. The news is very disturbing. We hope everyone on the plane is safe."

China is helping to locate the aircraft, Chinese state television said on one of its official microblogs.
The flight was piloted by Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a Malaysian aged 53, according to the airline. He has a total of 18,365 flying hours and joined Malaysia Airlines in 1981.

Distressed family members of those on board had begun gathering at Beijing airport on Saturday.

Chang Ken Fei, a Malaysian waiting at Beijing airport for friends to arrive, said: "I got here at seven (a.m.). At first I thought the plane was just delayed as normal, so I came a bit later. I've just been waiting and waiting. I asked them what was going on but they just tell us, 'We don't know.'"

If the plane is found to have crashed, the loss would mark the second fatal accident involving a Boeing 777 in less than a year, after an unblemished safety record since the jet entered service in 1995.

Last summer, an Asiana Airlines Boeing 777 crash landed in San Francisco, killing three passengers.

Boeing said it was aware of reports that the Malaysia Airlines plane was missing and was monitoring the situation but had no further comment.

link

[PrisonerOfHope]

Exclusive: Malaysia plane probe narrows on mid-air disintegration - source

By Siva Govindasamy

KUALA LUMPUR Sun Mar 9, 2014 12:20pm EDT



(Reuters) - Officials investigating the disappearance of a Malaysian airliner with 239 people on board are narrowing the focus of their inquiries on the possibility that it disintegrated mid-flight, a senior source said on Sunday.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished after climbing to a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing in the early hours of Saturday. Search teams have not been able to make any confirmed discovery of wreckage in seas beneath the plane's flight path almost 48 hours after it took off.

"The fact that we are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet," said the source, who is involved in the preliminary investigations in Malaysia.

If the plane had plunged intact from such a height, breaking up only on impact with the water, search teams would have expected to find a fairly concentrated pattern of debris, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the investigation.

The source was speaking shortly before Vietnamese authorities said a military plane had spotted an object at sea suspected to be part of the missing airliner.

Asked about the possibility of an explosion, such as a bomb, the source said there was no evidence yet of foul play and that the aircraft could have broken up due to mechanical issues.

Malaysian authorities have said they are focused on finding the plane and have declined to comment when asked about the investigations.

However, the source said the closest parallels were the explosion on board an Air India jetliner in 1985 when it was over the Atlantic Ocean and the Lockerbie air disaster in 1988. Both planes were cruising at around 31,000 feet when bombs exploded on board.

Canadian and Indian police have long alleged the Air India bombing was conducted by Sikh extremists living in western Canada as revenge on India for the deadly 1984 assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest shrine.

The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie killed 259 passengers and crew and another 11 people on the ground. A Libyan intelligence officer was convicted for the attack.

International police agency Interpol has said at least two of the passengers on board the Malaysian plane, and possibly more, used passports listed as missing or stolen on its database.

"Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol's databases," Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said in a statement.

U.S. and European security officials have however maintained there is no proof yet of foul play and there could be other explanations for the use of stolen passports.

link

[PrisonerOfHope]

Interpol probes more suspect passports from missing flight
Reuters
By Naomi O'Leary 5 hours ago



ROME (Reuters) - Interpol is investigating more suspect passports used to board a missing Malaysia Airlines flight, in addition to two European ones that were falsely used by unidentified passengers, the global police agency said on Sunday.

An Italian man and an Austrian man were falsely listed as passengers on Beijing-bound flight MH370, which disappeared after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur early on Saturday with 239 people aboard.

Authorities later confirmed the two men - Austrian Christian Kozel and Italian Luigi Maraldi - were not on the plane, and their passports had been stolen in Thailand within the last two years.

An Interpol spokeswoman said a check of all documents used to board the plane had revealed more "suspect passports" that were being further investigated.

She was unable to give further information on the number of documents or the country they related to.

Interpol maintains a vast database of more than 40 million lost and stolen travel documents, and has long urged member countries to make greater use of it to stop people crossing borders on false papers. Few countries systematically do so, it said in a statement.

The police organization confirmed that Kozel's and Maraldi's passports had both been added to the database after their theft in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

But it said no country had consulted the database to check either of them since the time they were stolen, so it was unclear how many times they might have been used to board flights or cross borders.

"Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in Interpol's databases," Secretary General Ronald Noble said.

The database is currently available to law enforcement authorities but not to airlines, the spokeswoman said.

"This is a situation we had hoped never to see. For years Interpol has asked why should countries wait for a tragedy to put prudent security measures in place at borders and boarding gates," Noble said.

"If Malaysia Airways (sic) and all airlines worldwide were able to check the passport details of prospective passengers against Interpol's database, then we would not have to speculate whether stolen passports were used by terrorists to board MH 370," he added.

There is so far no indication that the plane's disappearance is linked to the two passengers falsely travelling under the European passports. Authorities are currently trying to establish their true identities.

The fate of the plane is not known, but an investigation is narrowing in on the possibility that it disintegrated in mid-flight, according to a senior source.

Despite years of pressure from Interpol, in 2013 passengers were able to board planes a billion times without their passports being screened against the agency's databases, the agency said.


link

[PrisonerOfHope]

Why Malaysia Airlines jet might have disappeared
Associated Press
By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ 7 hours ago

.Malaysia Airlines Mystery: The Disappearance of Flight 370

NEW YORK (AP) — The most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Rarely do incidents happen when a plane is cruising seven miles (11 kilometers) above the earth.


So the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet well into its flight Saturday morning over the South China Sea has led aviation experts to assume that whatever happened was quick and left the pilots no time to place a distress call.

It could take investigators months, if not years, to determine what happened to the Boeing 777 flying from Malaysia's largest city of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"At this early stage, we're focusing on the facts that we don't know," said Todd Curtis, a former safety engineer with Boeing who worked on its 777 wide-body jets and is now director of the Airsafe.com Foundation.

Military radar indicates that the missing Boeing 777 jet may have turned back before vanishing, Malaysia's air force chief said Sunday as authorities were investigating up to four passengers with suspicious identifications. The revelations add to the mystery surrounding the final minutes of the flight. Air force chief Rodzali Daud didn't say which direction the plane veered when it apparently went off course, or how long it flew in that direction, Some of the information it had was also corroborated by civilian radar, he said.

If the information about the U-turn is accurate, that lessens the probability that the plane suffered a catastrophic explosion but raises further questions about why the pilots didn't signal for help. If there was a minor mechanical failure — or even something more serious like the shutdown of both of the plane's engines — the pilots likely would have had time to radio for help. The lack of a call "suggests something very sudden and very violent happened," said William Waldock, who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.

It's possible that there was either an abrupt breakup of the plane or something that led it into a quick, steep dive. Some experts even suggested an act of terrorism or a pilot purposely crashing the jet.

"Either you had a catastrophic event that tore the airplane apart, or you had a criminal act," said Scott Hamilton, managing director of aviation consultancy Leeham Co. "It was so quick and they didn't radio."

No matter how unlikely a scenario, it's too early to rule out any possibilities, experts warn. The best clues will come with the recovery of the flight data and voice recorders and an examination of the wreckage. U.S. investigators from the FBI, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration and experts from Boeing are heading to Asia to assist in the investigation.

A massive international sea search has so far turned up no trace of the jet, though Vietnamese authorities said late Sunday that a low-flying plane had spotted a rectangular object in waters about 90 kilometers (56 miles) south of Tho Chu island, in the same area where oil slicks were spotted Saturday. Search teams from Vietnam and other countries were asked to send boats to the area to examine the object. Authorities said earlier that they had spotted an orange object in the area that turned out not to be from the aircraft.

Airplane crashes typically occur during takeoff and the climb away from an airport, or while coming in for a landing, as in last year's fatal crash of an Asiana Airlines jet in San Francisco. Just 9 percent of fatal accidents happen when a plane is at cruising altitude, according to a statistical summary of commercial jet airplane accidents done by Boeing.
View gallery
Missing Malaysia Airlines jet
A view of oil slicks (pale line near the bottom right) spotted in an area of the South China Sea abo …

Capt. John M. Cox, who spent 25 years flying for US Airways and is now CEO of Safety Operating Systems, said that whatever happened to the Malaysia Airlines jet, it occurred quickly. The problem had to be big enough, he said, to stop the plane's transponder from broadcasting its location, although the transponder can be purposely shut off from the cockpit.

One of the first indicators of what happened will be the size of the debris field. If it is large and spread out over tens of miles, then the plane likely broke apart at a high elevation. That could signal a bomb or a massive airframe failure. If it is a smaller field, the plane probably fell from 35,000 feet (10,700 meters) intact, breaking up upon contact with the water.

"We know the airplane is down. Beyond that, we don't know a whole lot," Cox said.

The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records in aviation history. It first carried passengers in June 1995 and went 18 years without a fatal accident. That streak came to an end with the July 2013 Asiana crash. Three of the 307 people aboard that flight died. Saturday's Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 passengers and crew would only be the second fatal incident for the aircraft type.

"It's one of the most reliable airplanes ever built," said John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

Some of the possible causes for the plane disappearing include:

— A CATASTROPHIC STRUCTURAL FAILURE. Most aircraft are made of aluminum which is susceptible to corrosion over time, especially in areas of high humidity. But given the plane's long history and impressive safety record, experts suggest that a failure of the airframe, or the plane's Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines, is unlikely.

More of a threat to the plane's integrity is the constant pressurization and depressurization of the cabin for takeoff and landing. In April 2011, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from Phoenix after the plane's fuselage ruptured, causing a 5-foot (1.5-meter) tear. The plane, with 118 people on board, landed safely. But such a rupture is less likely in this case. Airlines fly the 777 on longer distances, with many fewer takeoffs and landings, putting less stress on the airframe.

"It's not like this was Southwest Airlines doing 10 flights a day," Hamilton said. "There's nothing to suggest there would be any fatigue issues."

— BAD WEATHER. Planes are designed to fly through most severe storms. However, in June 2009, an Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed during a bad storm over the Atlantic Ocean. Ice built up on the Airbus A330's airspeed indicators, giving false readings. That, and bad decisions by the pilots, led the plane into a stall causing it to plummet into the sea. All 228 passengers and crew aboard died. The pilots never radioed for help.

In the case of Saturday's Malaysia Airlines flight, all indications show that there were clear skies.

— PILOT DISORIENTATION. Curtis said that the pilots could have taken the plane off autopilot and somehow went off course and didn't realize it until it was too late. The plane could have flown for another five or six hours from its point of last contact, putting it up to 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) away. This is unlikely given that the plane probably would have been picked up by radar somewhere. But it's too early to eliminate it as a possibility.

— FAILURE OF BOTH ENGINES. In January 2008, a British Airways 777 crashed about 1,000 feet (300 meters) short of the runway at London's Heathrow Airport. As the plane was coming in to land, the engines lost thrust because of ice buildup in the fuel system. There were no fatalities.

Loss of both engines is possible in this case, but Hamilton said the plane could glide for up to 20 minutes, giving pilots plenty of time to make an emergency call. When a US Airways A320 lost both of its engines in January 2009 after taking off from LaGuardia Airport in New York it was at a much lower elevation. But Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger still had plenty of communications with air traffic controllers before ending the six-minute flight in the Hudson River.

— A BOMB. Several planes have been brought down including Pan Am Flight 103 between London and New York in December 1988. There was also an Air India flight in June 1985 between Montreal and London and a plane in September 1989 flown by French airline Union des Transports Aériens which blew up over the Sahara.

— HIJACKING. A traditional hijacking seems unlikely given that a plane's captors typically land at an airport and have some type of demand. But a 9/11-like hijacking is possible, with terrorists forcing the plane into the ocean.

— PILOT SUICIDE. There were two large jet crashes in the late 1990s — a SilkAir flight and an EgyptAir flight— that are believed to have been caused by pilots deliberately crashing the planes. Government crash investigators never formally declared the crashes suicides but both are widely acknowledged by crash experts to have been caused by deliberate pilot actions.



Map and video at link.

[schwartzie]

Official: Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet May Have Turned Back
Mar. 9, 2014 8:26am Oliver Darcy


Story by the Associated Press; curated by Oliver Darcy.

—

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Military radar indicates that the missing Boeing 777 jet may have turned back, Malaysia’s air force chief said Sunday as scores of ships and aircraft from across Asia resumed a hunt for the plane and its 239 passengers.

There was still no confirmed sighting of debris in the seas between Malaysia and Vietnam where it vanished from screens early Saturday morning en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur. The weather was fine, the plane was already cruising and the pilots didn’t send a distress signal — unusual circumstance for a modern jetliner to crash.
A man looks out from a viewing gallery as a Malaysia Airlines aircraft sits on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Sunday, March 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin)

A man looks out from a viewing gallery as a Malaysia Airlines aircraft sits on the tarmac at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Sunday, March 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin)

Air force chief Rodzali Daud didn’t say which direction the plane might have taken when it apparently went off route.

“We are trying to make sense of this,” he told a media conference. “The military radar indicated that the aircraft may have made a turn back and in some parts, this was corroborated by civilian radar.”

“We are trying to make sense of this.”

Malaysia Airlines Chief Executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said pilots were supposed to inform the airline and traffic control authorities if the plane does start to return. “From what we have, there was no such distress signal or distress call per say, so we are equally puzzled,” he said.

Authorities were checking on the suspect identities of at least two passengers who appear to have boarded with stolen passports. On Saturday, the foreign ministries in Italy and Austria said the names of two citizens listed on the flight’s manifest matched the names on two passports reported stolen in Thailand.

This, and the sudden disappearance of the plane that experts say is consistent with a possible onboard explosion, strengthened existing concerns about terrorism as a possible cause for the disappearance. Al-Qaida militants have used similar tactics to try and disguise their identities.

Earlier Sunday, Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that authorities were looking at four possible cases of suspect identities, and that Malaysian intelligence agencies were in contact with their international counterparts, including the FBI, in this regard.

Later, civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman mentioned only two passengers with unverified identities.

Two-thirds of the jet’s passengers were from China. The rest were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.

A total of 22 aircraft and 40 ships have been deployed to the area by Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, China and the United States, not counting Vietnam’s fleet.

Li Jiaxiang, administrator of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said some debris had been spotted, but it was unclear whether it came from the plane. Vietnamese authorities said they had seen nothing close to two large oil slicks they saw Saturday and said might be from the missing plane.

Finding traces of an aircraft that disappears over sea can take days or longer, even with a sustained search effort. Depending on the circumstances of the crash, wreckage can be scattered over many square kilometers (miles). If the plane enters the water before breaking up, there can be relatively little debris.

A team of American experts was en route to Asia to be ready to assist in the investigation into the crash. The team includes accident investigators from National Transportation Safety Board, as well as technical experts from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing, the safety board said in a statement.
This photo provided by Laurent Errera taken Dec. 26, 2011, shows the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER that disappeared from air traffic control screens Saturday, taking off from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in France. The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 carrying 239 people lost contact with air traffic control early Saturday morning, March 8, 2014 on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, and international aviation authorities still hadn't located the jetliner several hours later. (AP Photo/Laurent Errera)

Malaysia Airlines has a good safety record, as does the 777, which had not had a fatal crash in its 19-year history until an Asiana Airlines plane crashed last July in San Francisco, killing three passengers, all teenagers from China.

Investigators will need access to the flight data recorders to determine what happened.

Aviation and terrorism experts said revelations about stolen passports would strengthen speculation of foul play. They also acknowledged other scenarios, including some catastrophic failure of the engines or structure of the plane, extreme turbulence or pilot error or even suicide, were also possible.

Jason Middleton, the head of the Sydney-based University of New South Wales’ School of Aviation, said terrorism or some other form of foul play seemed a likely explanation.

“You’re looking at some highly unexpected thing, and the only ones people can think of are basically foul play, being either a bomb or some immediate incapacitating of the pilots by someone doing the wrong thing and that might lead to an airplane going straight into the ocean,” Middleton said on Sunday. “With two stolen passports (on board), you’d have to suspect that that’s one of the likely options.”

“You’re looking at some highly unexpected thing…”

Just 9 percent of fatal accidents happen when a plane is at cruising altitude, according to a statistical summary of commercial jet accidents done by Boeing. Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said Saturday there was no indication the pilots had sent a distress signal.

The plane was last inspected 10 days ago and found to be “in proper condition,” Ignatius Ong, CEO of Malaysia Airlines subsidiary Firefly airlines, said at a news conference.

Greg Barton, a professor of international politics at Australia’s Monash University and a terrorism expert, said if the disaster was the result of terrorism, there is no obvious suspect. If it was terrorism, Barton expected China would be quick to blame separatists from the ethnic Uighur minority, as authorities did recently when 29 people were killed in knife attacks at a train station in the southern city of Kunming.

“If a group like that is behind it, then suddenly they’ve got a capacity that we didn’t know they had before, they’ve executed it very well — that’s very scary,” Barton told AP. “It’s safe to start with the assumption that that’s not very likely, but possible.”

Video at link

[schwartzie]

The massive clue in the Malaysian airline mystery that isn’t getting enough attention
March 9, 2014 8:32 PM EDT

There is verifiable proof of a security breach on the missing Malaysian airplane that is only getting a short mention in the mainstream media
By John Vibes

MALAYSIA (INTELLIHUB) — The mainstream media has been saturated with coverage of the Malaysian airline disappearance, but recent developments which indicate that there was without a doubt a security breach on the plane are rarely being discussed. These details are being reported the media, but these facts are often buried at the bottom of articles and only mentioned in passing during news reports.

It has been reported that two passengers who were listed on the plane’s records, an Italian and an Austrian, were not even on the flight, but both reportedly had their passports stolen in Thailand. Now it has been revealed that both of these tickets were purchased in the same transaction.

Quietly tucked into the bottom of one of their articles, the BBC reported that:

“Interpol said at least two passports — one Austrian and one Italian — recorded in its stolen and lost travel documents database were used by passengers onboard the flight. The passports were added to the database after being stolen in separate incidents over the past two years…”

However, Italy and Austria have said that none of their citizens were onboard the plane. All the while, the two passengers who used the passports in question appear to have bought their tickets together.

The tickets were bought from China Southern Airlines at identical prices, paid in Thailand’s baht currency, according to China’s official e-ticket verification system Travelsky. The ticket numbers are contiguous, which indicates the tickets were issued together.



“Whilst it is too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen passport listed in INTERPOL’s databases”, said Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble in a statement.

Authorities worldwide are downplaying this clue.

“I’ve seen these reports about the passports. We’re looking into that, but we don’t have anything to confirm at this point,” U.S. deputy national security adviser Tony Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “The reports certainly raise questions and concerns, and that’s exactly why we’re looking into them. But right now, it would be premature to speculate”, he said.

The Malaysian transport and defense minister Hishammuddin Hussein said authorities were looking at two more possible cases of suspicious identities. “All the four names are with me and have been given to our intelligence agencies”, he said. “We are looking at all possibilities.”

To make matters even more suspicious, the plane seemed to have veered off its course.

Malaysia’s air force chief Rodzali Daud told a press conference that it appeared to have gone off-route, another fact that is being ignored by authorities and the mainstream media.. “We are trying to make sense of this … The military radar indicated that the aircraft may have made a turn back and in some parts, this was corroborated by civilian radar”, he said.

link

[schwartzie]

'One of two men who boarded doomed Air Malaysia flight on a stolen passport looked like Mario Balotelli': Authorities reveal key clue as they hunt Mr Ali, mystery Iranian businessman who booked their tickets

Search teams still unable to find trace of missing Malaysia Airlines plane
Searches taking place in South China Sea where last contact was made
U.S. led search meanwhile is also taking place near Andaman Sea
Interpol investigating whether up to four passengers had stolen passports
Men who used stolen passports not of Asian appearance, investigators say
Five passengers also checked on to flight but did not board plane
China has urged Malaysia to step up search as it also sends rescue teams
Thai travel agent says Iranian businessman booked tickets for the two stolen passport passengers

By James Rush

PUBLISHED: 03:04 EST, 10 March 2014 | UPDATED: 13:04 EST, 10 March 2014



Authorities have revealed one of the two men who used stolen passports to board the missing Malaysian Airlines plane looked like Mario Balotelli.

As it emerged an Iranian businessman known only as Mr Ali was understood to have booked the tickets for the two passengers using the stolen passports, the men who boarded the plane were said to have not been of 'Asian appearance'.

Malaysia's police chief was quoted by local media as saying that one of the men had been identified.

Civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman declined to confirm this, but said authorities were looking at the possibility the men were connected to a stolen passport syndicate.

Full story, pictures, and video at link.

[schwartzie]

Six important facts you're not being told about lost Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Monday, March 10, 2014
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

Tags: Malaysia Airlines, Flight 370, vanished

(NaturalNews) There are some astonishing things you're not being told about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the flight that simply vanished over the Gulf of Thailand with 239 people on board.

The mystery of the flight's sudden and complete disappearance has even the world's top air safety authorities baffled. "Air-safety and antiterror authorities on two continents appeared equally stumped about what direction the probe should take," reports the Wall Street Journal.

WSJ goes on to report:

"For now, it seems simply inexplicable," said Paul Hayes, director of safety and insurance at Ascend Worldwide, a British advisory and aviation data firm.

While investigators are baffled, the mainstream media isn't telling you the whole story, either. So I've assembled this collection of facts that should raise serious questions in the minds of anyone following this situation.

• Fact #1: All Boeing 777 commercial jets are equipped with black box recorders that can survive any on-board explosion

No explosion from the plane itself can destroy the black box recorders. They are bomb-proof structures that hold digital recordings of cockpit conversations as well as detailed flight data and control surface data.

• Fact #2: All black box recorders transmit locator signals for at least 30 days after falling into the ocean

Yet the black box from this particular incident hasn't been detected at all. That's why investigators are having such trouble finding it. Normally, they only need to "home in" on the black box transmitter signal. But in this case, the absence of a signal means the black box itself -- an object designed to survive powerful explosions -- has either vanished, malfunctioned or been obliterated by some powerful force beyond the worst fears of aircraft design engineers.

• Fact #3: Many parts of destroyed aircraft are naturally bouyant and will float in water

In past cases of aircraft destroyed over the ocean or crashing into the ocean, debris has always been spotted floating on the surface of the water. That's because -- as you may recall from the safety briefing you've learned to ignore -- "your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device."

Yes, seat cushions float. So do many other non-metallic aircraft parts. If Flight 370 was brought down by an explosion of some sort, there would be massive debris floating on the ocean, and that debris would not be difficult to spot. The fact that it has not yet been spotted only adds to the mystery of how Flight 370 appears to have literally vanished from the face of the Earth.

• Fact #4: If a missile destroyed Flight 370, the missile would have left a radar signature

One theory currently circulating on the 'net is that a missile brought down the airliner, somehow blasting the aircraft and all its contents to "smithereens" -- which means very tiny pieces of matter that are undetectable as debris.

The problem with this theory is that there exists no known ground-to-air or air-to-air missile with such a capability. All known missiles generate tremendous debris when they explode on target. Both the missile and the debris produce very large radar signatures which would be easily visible to both military vessels and air traffic authorities.

• Fact #5: The location of the aircraft when it vanished is not a mystery

Air traffic controllers have full details of almost exactly where the aircraft was at the moment it vanished. They know the location, elevation and airspeed -- three pieces of information which can readily be used to estimate the likely location of debris.

Remember: air safety investigators are not stupid people. They've seen mid-air explosions before, and they know how debris falls. There is already a substantial data set of airline explosions and crashes from which investigators can make well-educated guesses about where debris should be found. And yet, even armed with all this experience and information, they remain totally baffled on what happened to Flight 370.

• Fact #6: If Flight 370 was hijacked, it would not have vanished from radar

Hijacking an airplane does not cause it to simply vanish from radar. Even if transponders are disabled on the aircraft, ground radar can still readily track the location of the aircraft using so-called "passive" radar (classic ground-based radar systems that emit a signal and monitor its reflection).

Thus, the theory that the flight was hijacked makes no sense whatsoever. When planes are hijacked, they do not magically vanish from radar.

Conclusion: Flight 370 did not explode; it vanished
The inescapable conclusion from what we know so far is that Flight 370 seems to have utterly and inexplicably vanished. It clearly was not hijacked (unless there is a cover-up regarding the radar data), and we can all be increasingly confident by the hour that this was not a mid-air explosion (unless debris suddenly turns up that they've somehow missed all along).

The inescapable conclusion is that Flight 370 simply vanished in some way that we do not yet understand. This is what is currently giving rise to all sorts of bizarre-sounding theories across the 'net, including discussions of possible secret military weapons tests, Bermuda Triangle-like ripples in the fabric of spacetime, and even conjecture that non-terrestrial (alien) technology may have teleported the plane away.

Personally, I'm not buying any of that without a lot more evidence. The most likely explanation so far is that the debris simply hasn't been found yet because it fell over an area which is somehow outside the search zone. But as each day goes by, even this explanation becomes harder and harder to swallow.

The frightening part about all this is not that we will find the debris of Flight 370; but rather that we won't. If we never find the debris, it means some entirely new, mysterious and powerful force is at work on our planet which can pluck airplanes out of the sky without leaving behind even a shred of evidence.

If there does exist a weapon with such capabilities, whoever controls it already has the ability to dominate all of Earth's nations with a fearsome military weapon of unimaginable power. That thought is a lot more scary than the idea of an aircraft suffering a fatal mechanical failure.

Click here to read more details about possible "supernatural explanations" for the vanishing of Flight 370.  (At link)

link

[PurplePuppy]

Iranian people-smuggling link as Malaysia jet search widens
AFP
By Shannon Teoh 2 hours ago

.

Race Against Time to Find the Missing Malaysian Plane

Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Two suspect men who flew on a missing Malaysian airliner appear to have been Iranian illegal immigrants, officials said Tuesday, lessening fears of terrorism but shedding no light on the fate of the plane's 239 passengers and crew.

On the fourth day of a multinational search at sea and on land, relatives desperate for news of loved ones aboard Malaysia Airlines MH370 said their hopes for a miracle were ebbing away.

Authorities have doubled the search radius to 100 nautical miles (equivalent to 185 kilometres) around the point where the Boeing 777 disappeared from radar over the South China Sea early Saturday, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

"We are intensifying our search and rescue, and hoping against hope there is still an opportunity for us to rescue (those on board)," Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters.

The 34-year-old son of Malaysian security guard Subramaniam Gurusamy was on the flight to do business in Beijing for an oil company.

"My three-year-old grandson is asking: 'Where is Dad?' We tell him father has gone to buy sweets for you," Gurusamy, 60, said as he broke down in tears.

"Please bring back my son. I am praying for divine intervention. That is the only hope we have."

Malaysia had opened a terror probe, joined by FBI agents from the United States. But the revelation of the identities of two men who boarded the flight using stolen European passports suggested they were young Iranian migrants seeking a new life overseas.
View gallery
A board displaying messages for the missing passengers …
A board displaying messages for the missing passengers of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is seen at …

Interpol named the pair as Pouria Nourmohammadi, 18, who was booked to fly on to Germany, and Seyed Mohammed Reza Delavar, 29, who was ticketed through to Denmark.

Delavar's ultimate destination was Sweden, where he intended to apply for political asylum, according to Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

The two travelled to Kuala Lumpur from Doha on their real Iranian passports, and their identification was helped by relatives in Europe who reported them missing, officials said.

"It is part of a human-smuggling issue and not a part of a terrorist issue," Interpol chief Ronald Noble told reporters in France, adding that the international agency was more and more "certain that these individuals are probably not terrorists."

However, the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency Tuesday said that terrorism could not be ruled out.

"Clearly this is still a mystery," said CIA Director John Brennan, stressing it was too early to draw any conclusions.

Iran has offered its assistance to the Malaysian investigation, pledging to provide "any information on the Iranians and their status as soon as it is available".

Police in Southeast Asia agreed that people-smuggling was emerging as the likeliest explanation for the identity fraud.

The two passports -- one Italian and one Austrian -- were stolen over the past two years in Thailand, where police have long been battling a thriving trade in Western documents used by criminal gangs.

"We believe that these two passports were stolen by a human-smuggling gang who send people to work in third countries, especially European countries," Lieutenant General Panya Maman, commander of Thailand's southern police region, told AFP.

Malaysia's national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said his officers were not ruling anything out but were now focusing on theories including a hijacking, sabotage or psychological problems among passengers or crew.

Flight MH370, captained by a veteran pilot, had relayed no indications of distress, and weather at the time was said to be good.

The vastness of the search zone reflects authorities' bafflement over the plane's disappearance. The operation has grown to involve 42 ships and 35 aircraft from Southeast Asian countries, Australia, China, New Zealand and the United States.

The plane's last confirmed radar sighting was off Vietnam's southern coast. "In terms of our assessments and predictions -– we have little hope of a positive outcome," Pham Quy Tieu, Vietnamese deputy minister of transport, said.



- 'Emotional breakdown' -

The search sphere now includes land on the Malaysian peninsula itself, the waters off its west coast, and an area to the north of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

That covers an area far removed from the scheduled route of flight MH370, which officials say may have inexplicably turned back towards Kuala Lumpur.

China, which had 153 of its nationals on board the plane, said it would harness 10 satellites equipped with high-resolution imaging to help in the search. Boeing said it was joining a US government team to try to unravel the mystery of what happened to its 777-200 plane.

Conflicting information has deepened the anguish of relatives, with tests on oil slicks in the South China Sea showing they were not from the missing jet and reports of possible debris from the flight also proving to be false alarms.

At a hotel in Beijing where relatives are gathered, a man in his 20s surnamed Su said: "I hope it is a hijacking, then there will be some hope that my young cousin has survived.

"My uncle and aunt had an emotional breakdown, they are not eating, drinking and sleeping."

A total of 17 Chinese relatives have so far taken up an offer from Malaysia Airlines to fly to Kuala Lumpur to be closer to the operation, and more are expected in the coming days, the airline said.

Picture gallery and video at link.

[schwartzie]

Report: Missing Plane’s Co-Pilot Invited Women Into Cockpit During Flight 2 Years Ago
March 11, 2014 5:04 PM

Related Tags:
Boeing 777, Malacca Strait, Malaysia Airlines, Vietnam

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (CBS News/CBSDC/AP) — The Malaysian military has radar data showing the missing Boeing 777 jetliner changed course and made it to the Malacca Strait, hundreds of miles from the last position recorded by civilian authorities, according to a senior military official.

The development injects more mystery into the investigation of the disappearance of Saturday’s flight, and raises questions about why the aircraft was not transmitting signals detectable by civilian radar.

Local newspaper Berita Harian quoted Malaysian air force chief Gen. Rodzali Daud as saying radar at a military base had detected the airliner at 2:40 a.m. near Pulau Perak at the northern approach to the strait, a busy waterway that separates the western coast of Malaysia and Indonesia’s Sumatra island.

“After that, the signal from the plane was lost,” he was quoted as saying.

A high-ranking military official involved in the investigation confirmed the report and also said the plane was believed to be flying low. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

However, the Malaysian government disputed the military’s claim.

Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad, a spokesman for the prime minister’s office, told the New York Times that senior military officials told him there was no evidence that the plane had made it to the the Malacca Strait. He said the reported comments by the military were “not true.”

Authorities had earlier said the plane, which took off from Kuala Lumpur on the western coast of Malaysia at 12:40 a.m. Saturday en route to Beijing, may have attempted to turn back, but they expressed surprise that it would do so without informing ground control.

The search for the plane was initially focused on waters between the eastern coast of Malaysia and Vietnam, the position where aviation authorities last tracked it. No trace of the plane, which was carrying 239 people, has been found by than 40 planes and ships from at least 10 nations searching the area.

Malaysia Airlines, meanwhile, said it is investigating an Australian television report that the co-pilot on the missing plane had invited two women into the cockpit during a flight two years ago.

Jonti Roos described the encounter on Australia’s “A Current Affair.” The airline said it wouldn’t comment until its investigation is complete.

Roos said she and her friend were allowed to stay in the cockpit during the entire one-hour flight on Dec. 14, 2011, from Phuket, Thailand, to Kuala Lumpur. She said the arrangement did not seem unusual to the plane’s crew.

“Throughout the entire flight, they were talking to us and they were actually smoking throughout the flight,” Roos said.

Roos didn’t immediately reply to a message sent to her via Facebook.

CBS News correspondent Chip Reid reports that the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam are relatively shallow. But shallow water presents its own problems – tides and currents are stronger, scattering debris more quickly. Shallow water can also confuse sonar, sound waves used to locate objects on the ocean floor.

Oceanographer David Gallo led the 2009 search for Air France Flight 447, which went down in deep water in a remote section of the Atlantic Ocean. Search teams located the wreckage within five days but it took another two years to the flight data recorders in an underwater mountain range.

“I always like to think that we need to start by finding the haystack, and then we can look for the bits of the needle in that haystack and in this case the haystack is huge because we just don’t have the clues,” Gallo told CBS News.

Earlier Tuesday, Malaysia Airlines said in a statement that search and rescue teams had expanded their scope to the Malacca Strait. An earlier statement said the western coast of Malaysia was “now the focus,” but the airline subsequently said that phrase was an oversight. It didn’t elaborate. Civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said the search remained “on both sides” of the country.

Also Tuesday, authorities said two people who boarded the flight using stolen passports were Iranians who had purchased tickets to Europe. Their use of stolen documents had raised speculation of a possible terrorist link.

Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said investigators had determined one was a 19-year-old Iranian, Pouria Nourmohammadi Mehrdad, and that it seemed likely he was planning to migrate to Germany.

“We believe he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group,” Khalid said.

Interpol identified the second man as Seyed Mohammed Reza Delavar, a 29-year-old Iranian, and released an image of the two boarding a plane at the same time. Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said the two men traveled to Malaysia on their Iranian passports, then apparently switched to their stolen Austrian and Italian documents.

He said speculation of terrorism appeared to be dying down “as the belief becomes more certain that these two individuals were probably not terrorists.” He appealed to the public for more information about them.

Noble said neither of the men had a criminal record.


link

[baydoll]

This is getting stranger by the day! Anyone want to speculate on what they think might have happened?

I found this is on Natural News:


Disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 begins to demand supernatural explanations


(NaturalNews) As the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 continues to absolutely baffle investigators, explanations for what might have happened to the flight have entered the realm of the supernatural. Astonishingly, the Washington Post is now reporting that smartphones of some passengers who boarded the flight are still active and connected to the 'net even though the plane they were on has vanished.

As WashPost reports:

One of the most eerie rumors came after a few relatives said they were able to call the cellphones of their loved ones or find them on a Chinese instant messenger service called QQ that indicated that their phones were still somehow online.

A migrant worker in the room said that several other workers from his company were on the plane, including his brother-in-law. Among them, the QQ accounts of three still showed that they were online, he said Sunday afternoon.

Adding to the mystery, other relatives in the room said that when they dialed some passengers' numbers, they seemed to get ringing tones on the other side even though the calls were not picked up.


Four mind-bending possibilities, none of which seem possible
This brings up the immediate bind-bending question of how electronic devices on a commercial flight that vanished still appear to be connected to the internet. The explanations for this defy everything we think we know about reality:

• Mind-bending possibility #1, the "kidnapped" explanation: The plane somehow landed somewhere without leaving a radar signature of any kind, all the passengers are being held hostage there (and are thus still alive), their mobile devices are somehow within cell tower range and yet for some reason have not been confiscated. (This explanation seems extremely unlikely.)

• Mind-bending possibility #2, the "Stargate" explanation: A teleportation portal of some kind exists in the skies, through which the plane inadvertently flew and was teleported somewhere else. Yet, astonishingly, electromagnetic signals can still make it through the portal, and the two sides of the portal remain in contact across the radio spectrum. (This explanation sounds like pure science fiction and also seems extremely unlikely, yet we must at least acknowledge that modern physics has already demonstrated the instantaneous teleportation of information across apparently infinite space due to the "non-locality" of entangled electrons as described in quantum theory.)

• Mind-bending possibility #3, the "failed search" explanation: This far more mundane explanation supposes that the massive, multi-day search for plane wreckage and debris simply hasn't stumbled upon the correct location yet. The fact that airplane black boxes broadcast homing signals adds to the skepticism that this explanation holds any water, as it is extremely unlikely that the airplane's black boxes could have been obliterated. Nevertheless, this explanation still seems far more believable than supernatural explanations.

• Mind-bending possibility #4, the "advanced military weapons" explanation: Some military entity, either human or non-human, was testing an advanced weapon capable of either instantly obliterating large airborne objects or teleporting them to another place (or dimension). This explanation seems incredibly far-fetched, but then again, barely a hundred years ago, so did the idea that machines could ever fly at all. Related to this is the legend of the Philadelphia Experiment which some believe caused a U.S. Navy ship to vanish and reappear.


We must first stick to mundane explanations until more searches can be conducted
As someone who is trained in the sciences, I remain very skeptical that Flight 370 vanished for supernatural reasons, yet its disappearance unquestionably defies all known conventional explanations so far.

The vanishing of aircraft over the ocean is not without precedent, either. According to historical records, the so-called "Bermuda Triangle" causes both ships and aircraft to vanish for reasons that defy apparent scientific explanation. While the disappearance of ships can theoretically be explained by underwater volcanoes emitting large quantities of gas that mix with ocean waters and cause ships to immediately lose bouyancy, there has never been any convincing scientific explanation behind the disappearance of the many aircraft there. Click here for a list of the top 10 mysteries of vanishing aircraft, including some lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

With each passing day that this search goes on without finding any debris from the fight, it is incredibly reasonable to at least entertain supernatural possibilities in the quest for answers. At some point, if no debris ever appears, we must expand our window of possibilities to include what military strategists refer to as "unknown unknowns."

Learn more: www.naturalnews.com/044260_Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370_supernatural_explanations.html##ixzz2vkiYmYel

Learn more: www.naturalnews.com/044260_Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370_supernatural_explanations.html##ixzz2vkiBPVDu

[PrisonerOfHope]

It's both bizarre and fascinating.  As a pilot myself, I know there are several things that would transmit the location of the plane even if the pilot of the plane turned off the radios; there's the black box (which is actually neon orange) that could withstand a bomb exploding that records everything that goes on and would send off a signal, there's an emergency transmitter that goes off automatically sending off a signal on impact (either land or water), and there's no way that a plane can simply vanish off radar. 

The comments on some of the news stories are interesting; one guy wrote, "Doesn't the Bible say that in the Last Days people will disappear?"  (Typical cultural Christian with just a smattering of knowledge...)   We know Satan is the prince of the powers of the air; perhaps he somehow (with God's permission) had the plane disappear as a prelude to the great deception that will happen after the rapture? 

[PrisonerOfHope]

Satellite looking into missing Malaysia flight detects 'suspected crash area'
By Jethro Mullen and Michael Pearson, CNN
updated 5:10 PM EDT, Wed March 12, 2014
Source: CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: The three objects are large, with one about the length of a bus
NEW: They come from waters northeast of Kuala Lumpur, south of Vietnam
Agency: The satellite found "three suspected floating objects and their sizes"
The search zone now encompasses 27,000 square nautical miles

(CNN) -- A Chinese satellite looking into the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 "observed a suspected crash area at sea," a Chinese government agency said -- a potentially pivotal lead into what has been a frustrating search for the Boeing 777.

China's State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense announced the discovery, including images of what it said were "three suspected floating objects and their sizes." The objects aren't small at 13 by 18 meters (43 by 59 feet), 14 by 19 meters and 24 by 22 meters -- the latter of which is roughly the length of a bus.

The images were captured on March 9 -- which was the day after the plane went missing -- but weren't released until Wednesday.

The Chinese agency gave coordinates of 105.63 east longitude, 6.7 north latitude, which would put it in waters northeast of where it took off in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and south of Vietnam.

This isn't the first time authorities have announced they were looking at objects or oil slicks that might be tied to aircraft. Still, it is the latest and comes on the same day that officials, rather than narrowing the search area, more than doubled it from the day earlier to nearly 27,000 square nautical miles (35,000 square miles).

Earlier Wednesday, officials announced they had once again expanded the search area. It now covers nearly 27,000 square nautical miles, more than double the size of the area being searched just a day before.

Such a dramatic expansion at this stage of the investigation is troubling, said CNN aviation expert Richard Quest.

"At this stage in the investigation and search and rescue, I would have expected to see by now a much more defined understanding of what the route was, where the plane was headed and a narrowing of the search consequent upon that," he said on CNN's "New Day."
Missing Malaysia plane way off course
Did Flight 370 veer off course?
Malaysian Airlines: Crowdsourcing search
Oceanographer: Plane debris will move

Indeed, the lack of a clear direction prompted Vietnam to say that it's pulling back on its search efforts until Malaysian authorities come up with better information on where to look for the plane.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished early Saturday with 239 people on board during a flight between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.

Phan Quy Tieu, Vietnam's vice minister of transportation, said the information Malaysian officials provided was "insufficient."

"Up until now we only had one meeting with a Malaysian military attache," he said.

For now, Vietnamese teams will stop searching the sea south of Ca Mau province, the southern tip of Vietnam, and shift the focus to areas east of Ca Mau, said Doan Luu, the director of international affairs at the Vietnamese Civil Aviation Authority.

At a news conference Wednesday, Malaysian transportation minister Hishamuddin Bin Hussein defended his government's approach.

"We have been very consistent in the search," he said.

Timeline of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

Confusion over flight path

But even figuring out where authorities believe the plane may have gone down has been a difficult and shifting proposition.

In the immediate aftermath of the plane's disappearance, search and rescue efforts were focused on the Gulf of Thailand, along the expected flight path between Malaysia and Vietnam.

Over the weekend, authorities suddenly expanded their search to the other side of the Malay Peninsula, in the Strait of Malacca, where search efforts now seem to be concentrated.

That location is hundreds of miles off the plane's expected flight path.

An explanation appeared to come Tuesday when a senior Malaysian Air Force official told CNN that the Air Force had tracked the plane to a spot near the small island of Palau Perak off Malaysia's west coast in the Straits of Malacca.

The plane's identifying transponder had stopped sending signals, too, said the official, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Malaysia's civilian administration appeared to dispute the report, however.

The New York Times quoted a spokesman for the Malaysian prime minister's office as saying Tuesday that military officials had told him there was no evidence the plane had flown back over the Malay Peninsula to the Straits of Malacca.

The Prime Minister's office didn't immediately return calls from CNN seeking comment.

Then, in another shift, Malaysian authorities said at a news conference Wednesday that radar records reviewed in the wake of the plane's disappearance reveal an unidentified aircraft traveling across the Malay Peninsula and some 200 miles into the Straits of Malacca.

However, it wasn't clear whether that radar signal represented Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Gen. Rodzali Daud, head of the Malaysian Air Force, said at the news conference.

Rodzali said that officials are still "examining and analyzing all possibilities" when it comes to the plane's flight path.

Malaysian officials are asking experts from the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority and National Transportation Safety Board to help them analyze the radar data.

The FAA said Wednesday that it "stands ready to provide any necessary additional support."

The agency has already sent two technical experts and another official to Kuala Lumpur as part of a NTSB investigative team.

How you can help find the plane

No trace

The search zones includes huge swaths of ocean on each side of the Malay Peninsula, as well as land.

Forty-two ships and 39 planes from 12 countries have been searching the sea between the northeast coast of Malaysia and southwest Vietnam, the area where the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers.

But they are also looking off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, in the Straits of Malacca, and north into the Andaman Sea.

So far, searchers have found no trace of the plane.

What happened leading to the plane's disappearance also remains a mystery. Leading theories include hijacking, an explosion or a catastrophic mechanical failure.

Suggestions that the plane had veered off course and that its identifying transponder was not working raise obvious concerns about a hijacking, analysts tell CNN. But a catastrophic power failure or other problem could also explain the anomalies, analysts say.

In a sign authorities are looking at all options, Kuala Lumpur police told CNN they are searching the home of the airliner's Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

They were also questioning a man who hosted two Iranians who boarded the flight on stolen passports, the man -- Mohammad Mallaei -- told CNN on Wednesday.

Authorities have previously said they do not believe the men had any connection to terror groups.

Families' frustration

As the vexing search drags on, frustration has grown among friends and family of those who were on board.

"Time is passing by. The priority should be to search for the living," a middle-aged man shouted before breaking into sobs during a meeting with airline officials in Beijing on Tuesday. His son, he said, was one of the passengers aboard the plane.

Other people at the meeting also voiced their frustration at the lack of information.

Most of those on the flight were Chinese, and the Chinese government has urged Malaysia to speed up the pace of its investigation.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Wednesday appealed for patience.

"The families involved have to understand that this is something unexpected," Najib said. "The families must understand more efforts have been made with all our capabilities."

Video at link

[schwartzie]

.Did pilot commit SUICIDE? CIA boss says it is one theory agency is looking at as Malaysian police say they are carrying out psychological profiles of everyone on plane

CIA head John Brennan: 'No theory can be discounted' in hunt for clues
It came after he was asked if it was possible the pilot deliberately crashed
Brennan also said 'terrorism has not yet been ruled out of investigation'
Malaysian police say one of the two men on stolen passports was Iranian
Was asylum seeker, 19, 'not terrorist', and his mother was waiting for him
Smartphones of missing aboard flight MH370 'are still ringing', families say
19 families of missing claim to be connected - airline have also called crew
Growing frustration for relatives with no information on their missing
Angry relatives threw water bottles at officials unable to offer any answers

By James Nye and Amanda Williams and Richard Shears

PUBLISHED: 23:20 EST, 10 March 2014 | UPDATED: 04:36 EST, 12 March 2014


Authorities are investigating the possibility that the pilot of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH 370 committed suicide, the director of the CIA has revealed.

John Brennan, head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said: 'I think you cannot discount any theory', when asked if it was possible the pilot deliberately crashed the Boeing 777.

His intervention came as Malaysian police say they are carrying out psychological profiles of everyone on board the plane, which vanished on Saturday carrying 239 people after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.

The theory could offer an explanation as to how the plane 'disappeared' from civilian radar tracking its movements, as the pilot could simply have switched off the transponder shortly before it vanished.

Full story, video, lots of pictures at the link

[schwartzie]

E-Bomb: The Electronic Weapon That Can Make a Plane “Disappear” *Videos*



Mac Slavo
March 12, 2014

Over a dozen nations have now mobilized search teams for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The mysterious disappearance has left investigators all over the world wondering what could have happened. This is a huge investigation, as evidenced by the fact that China has re-tasked ten satellites to search for the wreckage, suggesting that the People’s Republic really wants to get to the bottom of what happened here.

There is no debris to be found. The black box, which is supposed to be indestructible in a large explosion and should broadcast a homing signal for up to 30 days, has gone dark. Moreover, INTERPOL is looking into several passengers who boarded the plane using false passports, and whose tickets were reportedly purchased by an unknown Iranian benefactor.

Several theories have emerged as to what could have caused the flight to “vanish” out of thin air. None of them are, as of yet, conclusive.

We can probably rule out a mid-air explosion, because something like that would likely have left instruments operational for long enough that readings would have been transmitted back to flight controllers. Likewise, there would be a fairly wide debris field had such an explosion occurred at such a high altitude.

Terrorism has not been ruled out, but traditional methods, including a hi-jacking, seem unlikely (remember those reinforced cockpit doors?).

It is certainly possible that search teams are just looking in the wrong place and the plane could be found in coming hours or days.

However, as noted by Mike Adams, the idea of an advanced military weapon of some sort is certainly within the realm of possibility. We know our Defense Department, as well as the militaries of other countries, are always hard at work developing new war-making technologies.

One such advanced weapons system has come to public light in recent years and as recently as two days prior to the disappearance of flight 370 Senator Ted Cruz mentioned it in a followup to his CPAC speech:

“When Iran describes Israel as the Little Satan, and America as the Great Satan, we have every interest to make sure they don’t acquire the weaponry to kill millions of Americans.” Cruz imagined a nightmare scenario in which Iran detonated a bomb over “Tel Aviv or New York or Los Angeles.” Detonated here, the effects of an EMP attack could kill “tens of millions of Americans.”

We know for a fact that China, North Korea, Russia and the United States have developed what are dubbed Super-EMP Weapons. These types of weapons require nuclear fuel and must be detonated over or near the target area. The secondary effect of this nuclear detonation is an electro-magnetic pulse. Deployed properly, for example 200 miles over the state of Kansas, such a weapon could literally wipe out every electronic system from coast to coast.

It is this possibility that prompted investigators to contact the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation yesterday, so they understand that this could well be the type of weapons used.

Experts at Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty have been asked to see if they detected an explosion at high altitude of the missing Malaysian Airlines plane.

Lassina Zerbo, executive director of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO) told a news conference the organisation used “infrasound” – or infrasonic sensors – to monitor the earth mainly for atmospheric nuclear explosions. (source)

More than likely, the infrasound tests won’t yield any result. For starters, it would be quite difficult to sneak a suit-case nuclear weapon onto an airplane. Second, a space or air explosion would have quickly been detected by military monitoring systems operated by the U.S., China and Russia.

The other possibility is one that is often not discussed, yet has emerged as a highly effective military system in recent years. This involves the use of a non-nuclear electro magentic pulse weapon.

Weapons designers specializing in high-energy physics can now create electromagnetic pulses without going into outer space. One approach involves harnessing the force of a conventional explosion. Others are simply just modifications of radar, which bounces pulses of energy off aircraft in flight, vehicles on the ground, and other objects.

Crank up the power and you have an EMP weapon, ready to point at the computers of your favorite enemy.This knowledge has set off a new arms race. Whether fitted into cruise missiles or parked at the side of the road in a van, non-nuclear EMP weapons have the potential to devastate the electronic systems of areas as large as a city or as small as a selected building, all without being seen, heard, or felt by a single soul.

It is a dream come true for any and all terrorists.

Sound far-fetched? It did not in 1993 to the owners of automobiles parked about 300 meters from a U.S. Defense Contractor’s EMP generator test site at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Their alternators and electronic engine controls were accidentally fried by a pulse during classified field trials.

Source: Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin

The following provides an explanation for how these weapons work. What we know about the Flight 370 disaster suggests that if this was an act of terrorism it could have been executed using a NNEMP:

NNEMP generators can be carried as a payload of bombs, cruise missiles (such as the CHAMP missile) and drones, with diminished mechanical, thermal and ionizing radiation effects, but without the political consequences of deploying nuclear weapons.

…

The electromagnetic pulse from NNEMP weapons must come from within the weapon, while nuclear weapons generate EMP as a secondary effect. These facts limit the range of NNEMP weapons, but allow finer target discrimination. The effect of small e-bombs has proven to be sufficient for certain terrorist or military operations. Examples of such operations include the destruction of electronic control systems critical to the operation of many ground vehicles and aircraft.

We know for a fact that these e-bombs have been built and tested by our own military. Unlike nuclear-based EMP weapons, these devices can be small and compact versions can actually be created with basic Do-It-Yourself kits. They can be deployed on drones, planes and missiles. They can be specifically targeted at cities, buildings or even vehicles. Thus, it is possible that such a device was used to take down Flight 370.

For the skeptics out there, watch the following video of a do-it-yourself homemade e-bomb being used to short-circuit a cell phone:



In this video, another homemade e-bomb is used to disable various electronics. Note that the rudimentary device looks to have an effective range of roughly 10 – 15 yards:



Now consider what a rogue terror organization or black ops team could do with a multi-million dollar budget.

Harping back to the Iranian connection, is it possible that a small capacity non-nuclear EMP weapon was smuggled on board the airplane, perhaps in common electronic devices, and triggered mid-flight?

That an unknown man named “Ali” purchased tickets for his friends at the last minute to the cheapest destination available, is highly suspect and is indicative of terrorism. An incident involving a man with a similar profile occurred at Amsterdam airport when the Christmas underwear bomber was allowed onto the plane – without a passport.

We’re not necessarily suggesting Iran is behind this, but it sure is an easy story to sell.

Insofar as the effects themselves, a non-nuclear EMP could well explain how a plane, from one second to the next, simply vanishes without a trace.



There would be no large debris field because the plane would have fallen right out of the sky, so instead of a search area of square miles, we’d be looking at mere yards, a difficult find in a huge ocean.



The homing device on the black box, which as far as we can tell is not shielded against an EMP blast, would, just as the planes instrumentation and communications equipment, short circuit and become inoperable.



No explosions or missile signature would have been detected by monitoring systems



While this theory is far from conclusive, it makes as much sense as any being proposed.

If this was the kind of weapon used, then it could have been a “dry run” for something much bigger, like a coordinated attack involving many more planes in the future.

Or, as highlighted by American Everyman, we can just go with the official story per the mainstream media:

So, right on cue, in the absence of a logical thesis, the mainstream media along with “high ranking unnamed sources” are starting to float ridiculousness as the solution.

Officials investigating the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner with 239 people on board suspect it may have disintegrated in mid-flight, a senior source said on Sunday, as Vietnam reported a possible sighting of wreckage from the plane. Reuters

Yes, there you have it, it may have just vaporized itself in mid-air for no apparent reason.

Vaporized? Gone? Nothing remained of this 600,000 pound jumbo jet?

The notion that an e-bomb was responsible is much more likely than vaporization.

And that is a much more terrifying thought to consider.


link

[PrisonerOfHope]

Missing Malaysia Plane 'Debris' Images Released

Planes are sent to the area where pictures of three objects were taken as the search enters its sixth day.
1:38am UK, Thursday 13 March 2014
Military officer Dong is seen reflected in a map on an iPad showing path of Vietnam Air Force search and rescue aircraft that he is travelling on, during a mission to find Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared, off Con Dao island

Video: 'Unprecedented' Search Under Way For Missing Plane (at link)



One of the three images released on Wednesday


Satellite images of possible debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane have been released by a Chinese government agency.

The pictures taken on Sunday appear to show three floating objects of varying sizes.

The report includes coordinates of a location that was part of the original search area in the sea off the southern tip of Vietnam and east of Malaysia.

'Debris' in sea The search for the plane is now in its fifth day

According to the Chinese news agency, Xinhua, the largest of the suspected pieces of debris is about 79 feet (24 metres) by 72 feet (22 metres).

The objects identified by a Chinese satellite were spread across an area with a radius of 12 miles.

Vietnam has now sent planes to the area where the images were taken.

Flight MH370 left Kuala Lumpur on Saturday morning bound for Beijing carrying 239 people.

The release of the images comes as the last words from the cockpit of the Boeing 777 were revealed.



Fariq Abdul Hamid & Zaharie Ahmad Shah Pilots Fariq Abdul Hamid and Zaharie Ahmad Shah

The pilot replied "Okay, received, goodnight" when Malaysian air traffic controllers signed off and told the plane it was entering Vietnam's airspace. Vietnamese controllers say they never heard from the aircraft.

US officials said on Wednesday none of the country's satellites detected a mid-air explosion when the plane lost contact with air traffic controllers, adding to the mystery surrounding its fate.

The search has now been widened to cover 27,000 square nautical miles.

India has been asked to scour the Andaman Sea off Malaysia's west coast, and the search is also covering the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca.



Malaysia map Military radar may have detected the plane miles from its intended route

Malaysia's air force chief confirmed military radar detected what could have been the airliner in an area in the north of the Strait of Malacca at around 2.15am local time on Saturday - 45 minutes after the plane vanished from air traffic control screens.

Rodzali Daud said the radar tracking point was 200 miles northwest of Penang Island on Malaysia's west coast, but that the detection had not been corroborated.

A senior Malaysia Airlines executive said on Wednesday there was "no reason to believe" the crew had caused the disappearance of the plane.

Footage has emerged of relatives furious at the lack of progress in the hunt for the flight.



A woman writes messages of support and hope for the passengers of the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 at Kuala Lumpur

The video is thought to have been recorded two days ago, and shows family members shouting and throwing an object at officials.

The majority of the passengers on board were Chinese, and impatience is growing there.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said: "There's too much information and confusion right now. It is very hard for us to decide whether a given piece of information is accurate.

"We will not give it up as long as there's still a shred of hope."

Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said authorities there "have nothing to hide".

"There is only confusion if you want to see confusion," he said.

More follows...


link

[baydoll]

Mar 12, 2014 15:46:54 GMT -5 PrisonerOfHope said:

It's both bizarre and fascinating.  As a pilot myself, I know there are several things that would transmit the location of the plane even if the pilot of the plane turned off the radios; there's the black box (which is actually neon orange) that could withstand a bomb exploding that records everything that goes on and would send off a signal, there's an emergency transmitter that goes off automatically sending off a signal on impact (either land or water), and there's no way that a plane can simply vanish off radar. 

The comments on some of the news stories are interesting; one guy wrote, "Doesn't the Bible say that in the Last Days people will disappear?"  (Typical cultural Christian with just a smattering of knowledge...)   We know Satan is the prince of the powers of the air; perhaps he somehow (with God's permission) had the plane disappear as a prelude to the great deception that will happen after the rapture? 

That's what makes this case so strange, the many anomalies involved. 

Did you see the picture of the two men who boarded with stolen passports? Someone caught how the lower half of the pictures were identical with the men having the same legs and same positioning, with the one guy's briefcase showing up in the other guy's photo... obviously photoshopped. But WHY? And the latest pic shows no bottom half at all. Again why? Are they trying to hide something from us ? If so, then WHAT?

I thought the same thing when I first started following this case, how this is similiar to the Rapture in what the media might say happened to millions of people disappearing into thin air. Right now the media is busy scrambling around trying to find(cough-cough)/provide answers and sadly MOST will believe ANYTHING the media tells them. 

I can hear them now: 'Oh look! The Aliens took the bad people away! Yay!!'

 

   

[baydoll]

Picture of the two men -



From here: www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/stolen-passport-holder-on/1028610.html

[baydoll]

Arlene, as a pilot, what do you think of the following theory?

What happened to MH370? (link: mh370lost.tumblr.com/?og=1 )

Has anyone considered if the below FAA Airworthiness Directive could be a clue the MH370 investigation?



SUMMARY: We propose to adopt a new airworthiness directive (AD) for

certain The Boeing Company Model 777 airplanes. This proposed AD was
prompted by a report of cracking in the fuselage skin underneath the
satellite communication (SATCOM) antenna adapter. This proposed AD
would require repetitive inspections of the visible fuselage skin and
doubler if installed, for cracking, corrosion, and any indication of
contact of a certain fastener to a bonding jumper, and repair if
necessary. We are proposing this AD to detect and correct cracking and
corrosion in the fuselage skin, which could lead to rapid decompression
and loss of structural integrity of the airplane.

Update 3/12, 16:43:

[Here was an earlier anonymous tip I received saying that the AD did not apply to MH370].

Update 3/13 0:00:

I got an email from a reporter suggesting that the AD did, in fact apply to MH370.


Update 3/13 2:36:

Latest statement, straight from a Boeing spokesperson:


The antenna covered by the pending AD was not installed on MH370, so that airplane is not subject to the AD or the related Service Bulletin.

So, it has been determined that the AD was not relevant to this plane. However, it served as the key inspiration for an alternative explanation.

New Summary:

There’s a chance that MH370 flew for hours on autopilot after we lost radar contact with it. The idea is that some kind of decompression event incapacitated the passengers and crew, while also somehow disabling Satellite and Radar communication systems.


If such a decompression were caused by a rupture in the skin of the fuselage, there’s a chance satellite and/or radar antennas would have suffered direct physical damage from the blowout.


Original Summary:

When I first wrote this, it seemed likely that a fuselage section near the SATCOM antenna adapter failed, disabling satellite based - GPS, ACARS, and ADS-B/C - communications, and leading to a slow decompression that left all occupants unconscious. If such decompression left the aircraft intact, then the autopilot would have flown the planned route or otherwise maintained its heading/altitude until fuel exhaustion.

A slow decompression (e.g. from a golfball-sized hole) would have gradually impaired and confused the pilots before cabin altitude (pressure) warnings sounded. There’s also the possibility of an extremely-rapid decompression, and it’s described toward the end of this post.



Hypothesized Chain of events:
•Likely fuselage failure near SATCOM antenna adapter, disabling some or all of GPS, ACARS, ADS-B, and ADS-C antennas and systems.
•Thus, only primary radars would detect the plane. Primary radar range is usually less than 100nm, and is generally ineffective at high altitudes.
If the decompression was slow enough, it’s possible the pilots did not realize to put on oxygen masks until it was too late. (See Helios 522) •Also explains why another Pilot thirty minutes ahead heard “mumbling” from MH370 pilots.
• (VHF comms would be unaffected by SATCOM equipment failure.)
With incapacitated pilots, the 777 could continue to fly on Autopilot - programmed to maintain cruise altitude and follow the programmed route. Using the Inertial Reference System (gyroscope based), the plane could navigate without needing GPS.


Other thoughts:
•The plane was [UPDATE: WAS NOT] equipped with cellular communication hardware, supplied by AeroMobile, to provide GSM services via satellite. However this is an aftermarket product; it’s not connected through SATCOM (as far as I know).
•[UPDATE]: However, if the plane flew over or near land, then cellular connectivity is still possible.
•Interestingly, 19 families signed a statement alleging they were able to call the MH370 passengers and get their phones to ring, but with no response.
•When Malaysian Airlines tried to call the phone numbers a day later, the phones did not ring. By this time, fuel would have been exhausted.
Note: 777 Passenger Oxygen masks do not deploy until cabin altitude reaches 13,500. Passengers were likely already unconscious by then, if it was a slow decompression. Also remember that this flight was a red-eye, most passengers would be trying to sleep, masking alarming effects of oxygen deprivation. No confirmed debris has been found in the search area, consistent with the plane having flown for hours after it lost radar contact.

[UPDATE 3/12]:



Issues of Decompression:


Whatever type of decompression happened, it was likely a non-catastrophic decompression that incapacitated the crew. It could have been a slow decompression. (This scenario is more likely if the “mumbles” observed by another MH pilot are legitimate.) It could have also been an extremely rapid decompression, forcing the lungs to exhale more rapidly than they are capable of. Either type of decompression makes it difficult for the crew to respond before becoming incapacitated.


This table from Carlyle shows that after a moderately rapid (2-6 second) decompression at MH370’s cruise altitude, the crew would have had only 30-45 seconds of useful consciousness unless they started oxygen breathing soon enough.



For all 3 types of (slow, moderate, extremely-rapid) decompression, there is substantial danger to the crew and passengers.

I was recently asked via Facebook, “Do any alarms go off when unexpected decompression occurs?”

Yes. An alarm in the flight deck is triggered if cabin altitude exceeds 10,000. However, reacting to it (with quick judgement, reasoning, and execution) is far more difficult than it would seem. An “obvious” first thought might seem to “throttle back and configure the autopilot to start descending now; to get to safe altitude.”

However that first instinct is completely wrong. It takes a surprising amount of training to instill into pilots that what they *need* to do first is put on oxygen masks. To train airline pilots, we often put them into a pressure deprivation chamber, simulate a gradual decompression, and follow up with oxygen breathing from a bottle. Many pilots say they notice an astounding difference in mental performance once they start the oxygen.


If handling decompression incidents was so trivial and obvious, why else would there be such drastic training?


Historical note: The 777 had an early history of decompressions when the first planes were rolling off the assembly line in 1995, however the incidents were managed safely.


So why does all this matter?

The aircraft may be at the floor of the East China Sea, Sea of Japan, or the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles northeast from the current search zone.


Recommendations:

•Investigators should obtain data logs from primary radars throughout mainland China that would have been along the planned route. They may be the best clue as to the trajectory of the aircraft.
•Investigators should obtain all passengers’ cell phone log and location data. The timing of the last successful cellular connection (ring/SMS/data-packet) can predict how long the plane was in the air. iPhone/iOS location (GPS) data may be available from Apple if subpoenaed. Android location data may be available from Google.
•Add a secondary search space to include a 300nm+ radius around Beijing, focusing on surrounding bodies of water. Using planned routing trajectory, known autopilot logics, fuel quantities, and weather patterns, it may be possible to define a smaller 50nm * 50nm search space. Consider running the above scenario in MH’s 777-200ER full flight simulator.
•Boeing should provide expertise about fuselage/antenna design and autopilot/navigation logic, so as to help plot this second search space.

The only problem being though is that the missing Boeing 777 veered way off course. Plus there isn't any wreckage anywhere (that's been found yet).

[PrisonerOfHope]

You know, I've been going over this in my head, reading news stories, even reading conspiracy sites...and I can't imagine what could have happened to this plane.

Even if the transponder was turned off, the plane would show up as a blip on a radar screen.

The only way a plane could avoid being on radar would be to fly under about 250' - in a plane that size, it would consume fuel like crazy at that low altitude...not to mention, why didn't ATC see a drop in altitude?  (Flight controllers see the altitude of all the planes they're watching so they know if it's safe for one to pass over or under another one.)

Those are Rolls Royce engines on that plane...and the manufacturer continually monitors the performance of them while in flight.  If something went wrong with them, they'd have known it.

As for maintenance, the FAA regs are pretty strict, but I know from my late husband they're not as strict about maintenance in other countries.  Even so, every plane is checked over when in comes in from a flight, and any reported problems attended to immediately.  There's also a comprehensive pre-flight inspection done before a plane takes off again. 

If the plane crashed, the black box should have emitted a signal, as would the ELS in the tail.  There's also ADS-B technology (read about it here) that almost all newer planes have. 

With all the satellites and ground radar, i can't imagine such a huge plane would disappear - and considering it vanished over one of the world's major sea lanes, I have no doubt that there was plenty of observational equipment.  It's unimaginable that no one saw anything at all.

On some of the professional pilots' forums they're talking about a potential highjacking, and there's speculation that there was a huge amount of gold on board...but then again, how could a plane just vanish off radar? 

This is totally and completely baffling....the only reasonable explanation, such as it were, is that TPTB have some sort of nefarious plan afoot and no one is talking...either that, or God allowed Satan to do ?????  as a prelude to the great deception that will follow the rapture.

Then again, there was the Philadelphia Project during WW II where experiments were done to make ships appear invisible - perhaps that technology has been perfected?  In that case, the prior comment would probably figure into it.

Or...maybe that plane never existed - you know, a phony story like the Sandy Hook shootings.

You know, I love reading mysteries.  I can't help but think that in eternity, forget about fiction...we'll be able to read about real-life mysteries and find out what really happened! 

Meanwhile, I know I always pray for my fellow pilots, as well as all those people who will perish in air disasters.  Hopefully if those people are dead, they had a final chance to hear the Gospel before it was too late. 

[schwartzie]

You have to admit, this whole thing is fascinating!  I feel bad for the loved ones of the missing, though.  There are some good comments on this angle at the link.

Malaysian airliner may have been commandeered and taken to secret Coco Island base — New info reveals plane flew 4-hours after transponder was deactivated
March 13, 2014 3:18 AM EDT

According to a new report, it looks as if the missing Malaysian flight MH370 may have stayed aloft up to 4-hours after the tower lost contact with the aircraft, signifying an entirely new scenario
By Shepard Ambellas

(INTELLIHUB) — An astonishing new report via the Wall Street Journal, dovetailing with information received by Intellihub News earlier Wednesday, may shed some light on the whereabouts of the missing plane and its occupants.

Please note that some of the information contained herein is not proven as of yet, but has been passed through our channels to us and is worthy of reporting as no stone should be left unturned.

Apparently the group, likely militarized, who commandeered the jetliner and it’s 239 occupants, didn’t account for the Boeing company’s automatic maintenance download which successfully transferred data from the missing aircraft to Boeing’s database about 5-hours after the triple-seven’s takeoff. This data transfer did happen and has been confirmed by Boeing officials.

In an amazing piece of journalism, Andy Pasztor of the Wall Street Journal wrote:

The investigation remains fluid, and it isn’t clear whether investigators have evidence indicating possible terrorism or espionage. So far, U.S. national security officials have said that nothing specifically points toward terrorism, though they haven’t ruled it out.

But the huge uncertainty about where the plane was headed, and why it apparently continued flying so long without working transponders, has raised theories among investigators that the aircraft may have been commandeered for a reason that appears unclear to U.S. authorities. Some of those theories have been laid out to national security officials and senior personnel from various U.S. agencies, according to one person familiar with the matter.

At one briefing, according to this person, officials were told investigators are actively pursuing the notion that the plane was diverted “with the intention of using it later for another purpose.”

As of Wednesday it remained unclear whether the plane reached an alternate destination or if it ultimately crashed, potentially hundreds of miles from where an international search effort has been focused.

However, Intellihub News has information leading us to believe that the aircraft turned-back toward the Sea of Andaman and may have possibly been taken to a secret military facility under communist control in the Coco Islands.

Interestingly enough, the Coco Islands were originally leased to the People’s Republic of China and likely remain under China’s control today.

In fact, an entry in Wikipedia details the region:

The Coco Islands consist of the main Great Coco Island and the smaller Little Coco Island, separated by the Alexandra Channel. Table Island, a third small island located near Great Coco Island, previously housed a lighthouse but is uninhabited. Slipper Island is a small islet located off the NW point of Table island.

The islands were allegedly leased to the People’s Republic of China since 1994.

The governments of Burma and the People’s Republic of China deny this, and many members of the Burmese military categorically deny any agreement at all.

[...]

China supposedly established a SIGINT intelligence gathering station on Great Coco Island in 1992 to monitor Indian naval activity in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The station is also said to allow China to monitor the movement of other navies and ships throughout the eastern Indian Ocean, especially in the crucial point in shipping routes between the Bay of Bengal and the Strait of Malacca. It may also be used to monitor activities at the launch site of the Indian Space Research Organization at Sriharikota and the Defence Research and Development Organization at Chandipur-on-sea. The Chinese Army is also building a maritime base on Little Coco Island.

Existence of the Chinese base has been questioned. In 1998, the U.S. stated that it had not detected any significant Chinese activity in Burma. India’s Chief of Naval Staff is quoted as saying in October 2005 that India had “firm information that there is no listening post, radar or surveillance station belonging to the Chinese on Coco Islands.” In 2014, Air Marshal P.K. Roy, Commander-in-Chief of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Command stated that “China has been developing a runway for civilian purposes. There are no reports of presence of Chinese per se. The situation is not alarming.” He added that there was only some civilian infrastructural developments which was not a threat to India.

And as you may have heard, China came forth with a blurry piece of satellite imagery Wednesday, which was released to American officials and news agencies, said to be “wreckage” from a “crash site” located about 140 miles S.E. of where flight MH370′s transponder stopped transmitting about 6 days ago. However, some are now speculating that the Chinese government may be trying to divert U.S. and Malaysian authorities away from where the plane really may have been taken. Interestingly enough, all of this matches up with reports from family members of passengers who said that their loved ones phones rang hours and days after the crash without being diverted to voicemail when called.

Now, researchers like myself are speculating that the passengers phones were possibly rounded up and thrown into bags by a militarized team which may have boarded the aircraft on the tarmac once it landed. However, all signs show that the sloppy black bag crew likely forgot to turn off the passengers phones, later leaving them in an unattended location to ring until the batteries fully discharged.

If this theory proves to be true, this would mean there is a chance that the 239 passengers that were aboard MH370 may still be alive and are possibly being held against their wills at a facility capable of accommodating the landing of a Boeing 777.

link

[schwartzie]

Officials 'convinced' two communications systems on missing jet were deliberately shut off 14-minutes apart as it emerges aircraft DID keep 'pinging' for hours after vanishing at 35,000 ft

Malaysian Airways flight MH370 went missing on Saturday morning carrying 239 passengers
Its last known position was above the South China Sea an hour into flying
U.S. official said two separate communication systems were shut down 'deliberately' shortly after take-off
Despite this, tracking signals or 'pings' were sent to British firms satellite from the plane for up to five further hours after it vanished
These pings show the plane's altitude, height and speed
According to US officials when the last ping was sent the plane was still flying at 35,000ft over water
Investigators have not revealed where the plane was last positioned
Flying at 35,000ft at its cruising speed the aircraft could have flown more than 2,500 miles from where it vanished
The White House has indicated the search will now concentrate in the Indian Ocean

By James Rush and James Nye and Richard Shears and Kieran Corcoran

PUBLISHED: 06:19 EST, 13 March 2014 | UPDATED: 00:19 EST, 14 March 2014


US officials believe that two communications systems aboard Malaysian Airlines flight 370 were shut down separately, 14 minutes apart - which indicates the plane did not come down because of a sudden catastrophic failure.

The data reporting system was shut down at 1.07 am and the transponder was turned off at 1.21 am just after the the pilot signed off to Malaysian air traffic controllers with 'All right, good night,' and before the Boeing 777 apparently changed course and turned west.

According to investigators this indicated that the switch-off could have been a deliberate act and officials told ABC News that the two communications devices were 'systematically shut down'.





Full story, pictures, and video at link.

[PrisonerOfHope]

Was missing jet HIJACKED? US officials fear MH370 was captured and flown to mystery location after debris seen at sea is ruled out and new data reveals it was airborne FOUR HOURS after vanishing

US investigators examining whether flight was taken to another location
Officials suspect data from engines suggests plane flew total of five hours
Counter-terrorism officials concerned pilot or someone else turned off transponders
Four more hours of flight time would allow the plane to fly 2,200 nautical miles
That would put Pakistan and the Arabian Sea within reach
Malaysia Airlines previously said the Rolls-Royce Trent engines stopped transmitting monitoring signals when contact with the plane was lost
On Wednesday the Chinese government satellite imagery was released which showed the 'suspected crash site' of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370
Blurry images appeared to show three large pieces of debris - the largest of which is 78-feet by 72-feet
Vietnamese and Malaysian aviation chiefs ruled this out and said no plane debris was found at spot shown by China's satellite images

By James Nye and Richard Shears In Kuala Lumpur

PUBLISHED: 16:19 EST, 12 March 2014 | UPDATED: 08:46 EST, 13 March 2014

s

US investigators think that Malaysian Airlines flight 370 remained airborne for four more hours after vanishing from its last recorded position - raising the startling prospect the plane could have been hijacked.

Officials suspect that the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded from the Boeing 777's Rolls Royce engines and sent back to the ground as part of a routine monitoring program.

US counter-terrorism teams are now pursuing the astonishing possibility that the plane and its 239 passengers were diverted to an undisclosed location 'with the intention of using it later for another purpose'.

Scroll down for video (at link)



Startling theory: US counter-terrorism officials are concerned as to why Malaysian Airlines flight 370 remained airborne for four hours after it vanished from radar based on data transmitted from its engines. Pictured are crew members of a Chinese Air Force aircraft



Disconcerting: Police patrol with a dog at Beijing International Airport days after the Beijing-bound Malaysian jetliner went missing. One of the world's most perplexing aviation mysteries continued to rumble on through Thursday as reports claimed US investigators were examining if the plane was hijacked by terrorists

The Wall Street Journal broke the new developments after talking with two unofficial sources familiar with the American investigation - raising a whole new raft of questions about what happened to the jet which disappeared seemingly without trace from radar at around 1.30 am early on Saturday morning en-route to Beijing.

Government terrorism experts are now examining the possibility that the pilot or somebody else turned the plane's transponders off to avoid detection and flew it to another country.

A total flight time of five hours upon leaving Kuala Lumpur means that the Boeing 777 would have been able to remain airborne for an additional 2,200 nautical miles at its air-speed - which put the border of Pakistan and the Arabian Sea within its reach.

While the Wall Street Journal said it isn't clear whether investigators have evidence of terrorism or hijacking - they have not ruled it out.

A senior Malaysia Airlines official told Reuters that no such data existed, while a second official said he was unaware of it. A spokeswoman for engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce had no immediate comment.

Malaysia Airlines has said previously that the Rolls-Royce Trent engines stopped transmitting monitoring signals when contact with the plane was lost.
Indonesian air force search sea for Malaysian plane wreck

However, officials are working on the suspicion that the plane's engines were operating for four more hours following its last recorded sighting on radar.

This has caused enormous uncertainty over the final destination of the aircraft - in addition to why it flew for so long without operating its transponders.

One working theory from counter-terror officials is that the plane was taken over for an as-yet unknown purpose.




Uncertainty: Passengers look at a Malaysian Airline planes at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia, on 13 March 2014. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 with 239 people on board went missing early 08 March 2014 while on its way to Beijing under mysterious circumstances

The Wall Street Journal said that this scenario - previously only discussed in the media as one of a number of conspiracy theories - was brought to national security officials and senior personnel from the appropriate US agencies.

At one of these briefings, officials were told that terror investigators were actively examining if flight 370 had been commandeered 'to be used later for another purpose'.

Of course, the mystery of the whereabouts of the aircraft continues - and it remains unclear if the plane crashed hundreds of miles from its last known location or indeed landed at an alternate destination.

As part of maintenance agreements between Rolls Royce and Malaysian Airlines, the engines transmit live data to its global engine health monitoring center in Derby, UK for analysis every 30 minutes.

Investigators have used this information to try to establish the activities of flight 370 after its transponders ceased to work en-route to Beijing, half way across the Gulf of Thailand.

No trace: Vietnam Air Force aircraft flies during search and rescue (SAR) operations for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight, off Vietnam's sea, on 13 March 2014 - the Boeing 777 has not been found or heard from since March 8 when it disappeared from radar

Six days on and a massive international air and water search involving 10 nations using 56 surface ships have failed to find a single piece of debris or sign of the Malaysian Airlines aircraft.

Hopes of a resolution were briefly raised when a Chinese state agency released satellite images of three pieces of large debris floating near to the jets last recorded position in the South China sea.

These were dashed early on Thursday morning when Vietnamese and Malaysian authorities said they found no trace at the co-ordinates.

'There is nothing. We went there, there is nothing,' Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's civil aviation chief said on Thursday morning.

Vietnam had already searched the area where Chinese satellites showed objects that could be debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet but a plane was sent to check the area again, Vietnamese military officials said.

'We are aware and we sent planes to cover that area over the past three days,' Deputy Transport Minister Pham Quy Tieu told Reuters. 'Today a military plane will search the area again,' he said.

And on Thursday morning Vietnamese authorities said two military jets searching for clues top the missing Malaysia Airlines jet found no wreckage at the location.

Full story, video, lots more pictures at link.

[PrisonerOfHope]

US Officials Have 'Indication' Malaysia Airline Crashed into Indian Ocean
By MARTHA RADDATZ | Good Morning America – 11 hours ago



U.S. officials have an "indication" the missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner may have crashed in the Indian Ocean and is moving the USS Kidd to the area to begin searching.

It will take another 24 hours to move the ship into position, a senior Pentagon official told ABC News.

"We have an indication the plane went down in the Indian Ocean," the senior official said.

The official initially said there were indications that the plane flew four or five hours after disappearing from radar and that they believe it went into the water. Officials later said the plane likely did not fly four or five hours, but did not specify how long it may have been airborne.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said, “It's my understanding that based on some new information that's not necessarily conclusive, but new information, an additional search area may be opened in the Indian Ocean, and we are consulting with international partners about the appropriate assets to deploy.”

Carney did not specify the nature of the “new information.”

Pentagon officials said that the USS Kidd was being moved at the request of Malaysia and is heading towards an area where the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea meet. The ship has helicopters aboard that can scour the area.

The U.S. action came hours after Malaysian officials said they had extended their search into the Andaman Sea and had requested help from India in the search for the missing plane and its 239 passengers.

Investigators also said today that U.S. officials gave them reasons to keep searching the waters west of Malaysia, far from the flight path of the Malaysia Airlines plane.

Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that the search’s “main focus has always been in the South China Sea,” which is east of Malaysia and along the plane’s route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

But the search was extended earlier this week to include water far to the west on the other side of Malaysia.

“We are working very closely with the FAA and the NTSB on the issue of a possible air turn back,” Hishammuddin said, referring to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board.

“They have indicated to us that based on the information given by the Malaysian authorities, they — being the FAA and NTSB — the U.S. team was of the view that there was reasonable ground for the Malaysian authorities to deploy resources to conduct search on the western side of the peninsula of Malaysia. Under the circumstances, it is appropriate to conduct the search even if the evidence suggests there is a possibility of finding a minor evidence to suggest that ... the aircraft would have been there.”

Hishammuddin said it was possible the plane kept flying after dropping off of radar. "Of course, this is why we have extended the search," he said.

The Malaysians spent much of today's news conference dismissing earlier leads.

"I’ve heard of many incidents from many sources. Like we have said from the start, we have looked at every lead and in most cases — in fact in all cases — that we have pursued, we have not found anything positive," Hishamuddin said.

He said that pictures of three large objects floating in the South China Sea posted Wednesday on a Chinese government website were not debris from the missing plane.

"A Malaysian maritime enforcement agency surveillance plane was dispatched this morning to investigate potential debris shown on Chinese satellite images. We deployed assets, but found nothing. We have contacted the Chinese Embassy who notified us this afternoon the images were released by mistake and did not show any debris from MH370," he said.

Hishamuddin also dismissed a report by the Wall Street Journal that signals sent by the plane's Rolls Royce engine indicated the plane kept flying for up to five hours. He didn't dispute the plane could have kept flying, but said Rolls Royce did not receive any signals from the engine after it vanished from radar.

Earlier in the search, two oil slicks were determined to not be from the plane and an orange object thought to be part of the plane's door was investigated and found to be unrelated.

Video at link.

[baydoll]

Or...maybe that plane never existed - you know, a phony story like the Sandy Hook shootings.

I'm beginning to suspect this 'might' be the case.   This whole thing might be a diversion to keep our eyes off of something far more insidious going on now or getting ready to take place. Case in point is that ridiculous photo the Malaysian government 'leaked' to the public and their equally ridiculous explanation of why the photo was 'altered'.  Red herrings, anyone? I think we're getting played.