The Mystery of Missing Malaysia Airlines 370

[OttoVonBismarck]

Suicide makes the most sense, people at the end are irrational. Who knows why he might want to keep flying for hours. I wouldn't be all that surprised it the plane went down shortly later, some of these software ideas suggesting it could have been flying for 7+ hours could end up being a false positive or maybe the long "handshake" really was able to continue after the crash. Anyway, if it's a hijacking there are really only a few scenarios and none make sense.

1. Refugee hijacking for safe passage elsewhere -- hijackers would have no reason to want the plane to be untrackable.

2. Hijacking to intentionally wreck the plane. Whatever terrorist group was behind it would want to claim responsibility right away. I know a Uighur group has, so maybe this is what happened and we just aren't taking it as seriously as we should.

3. Hijacking to steal the plane / take it hostage. Stealing is unlikely given the impossible logistics and lack of covert landing areas. If you want hostages you'd already be public.

Suicidal pilot just seems the most likely. The captain was very politically involved and the leader of his party had just been jailed in the same week his wife apparently moved out of their shared home with their child. We have no explanation on that yet, but he wouldn't be the first guy to get unhinged over his wife leaving him.

[Monoriu]

I agree that among all the theories, suicide makes the most sense.  But I think we know far too little at this stage to draw any meaningful conclusions.  I won't be surprised if new evidence emerges tomorrow indicating that the pilot has friends in some terrorist group.  At this point I am willing to consider any theory other than alien abduction. 

[Caliga]

To me, if it's a pilot suicide, it does make sense that the plane would keep flying for so long and go into the drink in the southern Indian Ocean.  If the guy can prevent the plane from ever being found then it will be hard to prove he committed suicide, and therefore it would have an impact on any life insurance payouts due to his family.

[dps]

Now that I think about it, it might well be possible for the pilots stealing this plane to mimic civil aviation and thus escape any real notice. 

Yeah, that was more what I had in mind when I posted about being able to avoid detection if you know what you're doing than someone installing radar detection gear

[grumbler]

Yeah, that was more what I had in mind when I posted about being able to avoid detection if you know what you're doing than someone installing radar detection gear

Gotcha.  Not so much avoid detection as avoid attracting attention.  Agreed.

[garbon]

To me, if it's a pilot suicide, it does make sense that the plane would keep flying for so long and go into the drink in the southern Indian Ocean.  If the guy can prevent the plane from ever being found then it will be hard to prove he committed suicide, and therefore it would have an impact on any life insurance payouts due to his family.

Seems a bit convoluted.

[Iormlund]

To me, if it's a pilot suicide, it does make sense that the plane would keep flying for so long and go into the drink in the southern Indian Ocean.  If the guy can prevent the plane from ever being found then it will be hard to prove he committed suicide, and therefore it would have an impact on any life insurance payouts due to his family.

Seems a bit convoluted.

Nah, convoluted would be that he's still alive, enjoying said insurance payouts after facial plastic surgery to become someone else.

[Zanza]

Suicide necessitates that one of the pilots quickly incapacitated the other pilot after the start or that they were both suicidial, which is rather unlikely. This isn't like that TWA plane that just dropped into the ocean within a very short time.

Does the cabin crew in an airliner have any means to send a distress signal, such as using the onboard phones? In case of a single rogue pilot flying the wrong way for hours, they should have noticed the erratic flight pattern and called home, no? Unless that can be switched off in the cockpit too (which shouldn't be possible based on previous hijackings in my opinion).

[HVC]

Quick, perhaps dumb question, but why dies the pilot even have the ability to turn off the beacon and transponder? What purpose does that serve?

[grumbler]

Quick, perhaps dumb question, but why dies the pilot even have the ability to turn off the beacon and transponder? What purpose does that serve?

When a plane is on the ground, the pilot will turn off the IFF so that the ATC radars are not getting a zillion returns from planes parked around the airport.

[HVC]

I hadn't thought of that, but it makes sense. Thanks.

[CountDeMoney]

Suicide necessitates that one of the pilots quickly incapacitated the other pilot after the start or that they were both suicidial, which is rather unlikely.

What makes you think that the pilot or pilots had to be incapacitated?  What, a crew member can't get up to take a shit or get a drink or go crash for a quick nap in an empty seat in first class on a night flight at the end of a long week and somebody locks the cockpit door behind him, leaving him alone at the controls?

A lot of you would make really shitty detectives.  Your brains lock on to one item, and go spinning right off into orbit.   Suicide doesn't necessitate jack shit.

[Caliga]

I thought about that possibility too, but it doesn't seem to work unless pilots can manually depressurize the cabin separately from the cockpit, or else the locked-out pilot could warn people what was going on and I would think someone would have made calls/sent texts about the situation.  I don't know if it's possible to control cabin pressure in that way.

[grumbler]

What makes you think that the pilot or pilots had to be incapacitated?  What, a crew member can't get up to take a shit or get a drink or go crash for a quick nap in an empty seat in first class on a night flight at the end of a long week and somebody locks the cockpit door behind him, leaving him alone at the controls?

A lot of you would make really shitty detectives.  Your brains lock on to one item, and go spinning right off into orbit.   Suicide doesn't necessitate jack shit.

If your scenario were true, there would be a high risk of someone calling in on a sat phone (much more common in that part of the world than in the West, due to cell phone limitations).  The only way to avoid that is to incapacitate the passengers and crew.

[CountDeMoney]

What makes you think that the pilot or pilots had to be incapacitated?  What, a crew member can't get up to take a shit or get a drink or go crash for a quick nap in an empty seat in first class on a night flight at the end of a long week and somebody locks the cockpit door behind him, leaving him alone at the controls?

A lot of you would make really shitty detectives.  Your brains lock on to one item, and go spinning right off into orbit.   Suicide doesn't necessitate jack shit.

If your scenario were true, there would be a high risk of someone calling in on a sat phone (much more common in that part of the world than in the West, due to cell phone limitations).  The only way to avoid that is to incapacitate the passengers and crew.

I dunno, there's a lot of incapacitation on a Boeing at 2am as it is.   And terminal velocity after pitch down is not going to give many people a chance to wrap up their Words With Friends turns.

Personally, I'm not buying the Malaysian radar reports beyond the time that the transponder was turned off, mainly because it's only coming from the Malaysians, who I wouldn't trust with a brownie recipe let alone international air traffic management.

It's a big ocean, planes disintegrate upon impact, and sometimes wreckage isn't found, particularly when you're relying on parties in a region where all the players don't work and play well with others.