OT: Flight MH370

[kato13]

I'm actually considering a poll on this one.

These are some of the options I have seen suggested.

Pilot and/or Copilot Suicide
Hijacking for Terrorism
Mechanical/Electrical Failure/Fire
Hijacking for Ransom
Hijacking for Theft of Aircraft (Generally for future terrorism)
Hijacking for Cargo
Shot Down (Military)
Shot Down (Terrorist)
Dharma Initiative/Aliens/Other

Are there any others

[Rainbow Six]

Hijacking in order to steal cargo. As far as I know cargo manifest has not been released to the public and there are question marks as to whether it was carrying more cargo weight than might be considered normal (justification for this is that some passengers were only accepted on a standby basis although the flight was nowhere near full). That has led to speculation in some parts that it might have been carrying gold bullion.

[Cdnwolf]

They think they found debris SOUTH of Perth Australia... Targan... go out there and check will you.

[Targan]

They think they found debris SOUTH of Perth Australia... Targan... go out there and check will you.

I'll go and have a look. Someone put a slab in the esky, I'll be back soon.

[WallShadow]

My take
Land aircraft at undisclosed location.
Repaint, refit aircraft.
Rework transponder and black box.
Launch and fly to target area along a flight's expected path.
Reenact 9/11.

Of course the cost of the handwavium content of this plan may become prohibitive....

[Schone23666]

Okay, my take... (and maybe this theory's already been covered somewhere)

Some government arranged the whole damn thing to see, or rather, get a very rough glimpse of whatever radar and naval capabilities the various countries involved in the rather large search area possess. One opinion article posited that whatever country actually found this aircraft, or remnants of it would have bragging rights and would probably garner some interest in it's sea and air capabilities. It's worth noting that there's been a gradual escalation of tensions in this area, something that's simmering for a while now over the Spratly Islands and who has claim to what, along with China asserting a bigger defense posture and making "historical" claims to both the Islands and the China seas...I guess the same way Putin's made his claim to annex the Crimean peninsula. Oh no, wait, he's doing it to "protect" Russian citizens, my bad...

Of course, this theory/conspiracy wouldn't be very likely from the get-go unless the conspirators were competing for "Dumbass of the Year" award, since there's MUCH more subtle and quiet ways to get info on the capabilities of said countries via HUMINT and ELINT, without all the muss and fuss.

Plus is it surprising that not everyone is too forthcoming with certain details on their radar assets during the search, especially in light of recent geopolitical events It wouldn't surprise me if the JORN system Australia's using actually performs very well beyond what's actually published. The ROTHR system we use that's similiar but on a larger scale...well, I don't think I'm volunteering any secret info if I were to state that you can see very well all the way into South America with that system, easily. Now, they've continued tinkering with the ROTHR system and come up with some interesting applications, but I can't go into details there unless I want a friendly neighborhood visit from the FBI, among others.

[Sanjuro]

Please, no poll. It would be in poor taste.

[stormlion1]

My take is one of two things happened. One is that there was a malfunction of some kind that shut down a lot of the electronics and the crew was flying blind and began to look for anywhere to land near where help could be found. Passed over uninhabited land and decided not to attempt to land or couldn't and they just flew off back to sea and kept looking. Eventually they played lawn dart and went into the sea. The lack of debris makes me believe they flew low and stalled out over the ocean and it landed relatively intact then sank. Main question is did the passengers get out and are floating about or did the plane flood too fast and take them to the bottom.

Second theory is the plane was taken over by terrorists of some stripe, flown to some land mass to refuel and then flown to Africa somewhere or up into southern Asia somewhere where the planes crew and passengers were removed, the plane stripped for parts and then the parts were held for later sale and the passengers and crew either killed or separated for ransom later. Things may be too hot right now due to all the media coverage that there just sitting on them. Other option is the crew and passengers were broken up into usable and non-usable people and the non-usable were killed and bodys dumped and usable separated to various places too work, males to mines, fields, etc, females to brothels. Things like that.

Not a pretty picture either way but one of the two is my take on what happened.

[Schone23666]

On a side note, it wouldn't surprise me if this turns into another unsolved mystery like the Mary Celeste, or Navy Flight 19 in the Triangle.

[Sanjuro]

My best guess: onboard fire.
First action is to turn off everything electrical you can (trying to pinpoint which electrical system is the source takes too long). While you're doing that the other guy points the aircraft at the nearest runway and tries to get there fast. In this case, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111 , time from first smell of smoke to impact was 21 minutes. If you get a chance to tell ATC, good, but that is low priority.
The reported climb to 45000 feet could have been an attempt to starve the fire of oxygen- by the look of things this may have worked, but either this or some combination of fumes killed everyone on board. The aeroplane then flew on autopilot in the last direction it happened to be pointing until it ran out of fuel.
Please note, this is just a hypothesis which appears to tie in with some of the reported radar observations. Until the CVR and FDR are found (if they ever are) it is impossible to tell. There was, however, a cargo of lithium batteries on board.

[Targan]

I'll go and have a look. Someone put a slab in the esky, I'll be back soon.

So I swam out to where they found the wreckage but there's a 13-foot swell so it was slow going. I might go for a dive when the weather calms down a bit... but most of the wreckage will be about 3 miles deep so I'm going to need a REALLY long snorkle.

[Schone23666]

So I swam out to where they found the wreckage but there's a 13-foot swell so it was slow going. I might go for a dive when the weather calms down a bit... but most of the wreckage will be about 3 miles deep so I'm going to need a REALLY long snorkle.

Oh, c'mon Targan, ONLY a 13-foot swell I'd thought you might've at least run into a Great White shark or two (or three, or four...)

[Raellus]

I just returned safely from a pair of transatlantic flights and have been following this story since it first broke. I don't really like flying in the first place but this incident- especially the enduring mystery of the whole thing- really made this last trip especially nerve-wracking.

Anyway, my first theory once it came out that the place flew on for another 6 hours or so, and crossed the Malaysian peninsula heading west, is that it was terrorism/air-piracy. Looking at a map, the plane could have easily made it to Sri Lanka (Tamil Tigers, perhaps). From there, who knows.

Now, based on its current suspected crash location, it looks like either a failure of the plane's electronic systems (resulting in the pilots becoming lost) or flight crew suicide. The former seems more likely to me. For the pilot to have done himself in in such a fashion, one imagines that the rest of the flight crew would have figured out that something was up and stepped in to stop him. Also, that long of a flight would give a suicidal pilot a much greater chance to have second thoughts.

But, if it was a matter of getting lost, why head south to find a landing spot rather than north I doubt that pilots are routinely trained in navigation using the stars or the sun but I don't think it would be that hard to orient the plane correctly, using either method, and head north to where you know the bulk of the Asian continent must lie. Flying south searching for... Australia That just seems a lot riskier.

Now, I favor a hybrid explanation. I think it may have been a hijacking where a small terrorist team took out the flight crew (apparently the pilots were quite lax with cockpit security) with some nefarious, 9-11-ish intent but subsequently got lost after shutting off the various IFF and navigation systems and ran out of fuel over a remote stretch of the Indian Ocean. I really hope that they locate the black boxes and recover the data recorded. Only then we'll we learn what really happened.

[kato13]

I really hope that they locate the black boxes and recover the data recorded. Only then we'll we learn what really happened.

Unfortunately the voice recorders only store a 2 hours loop. So it is possible that there will be no useful information on it if there was any hypoxia event early on. The data recorder should have everything though. They will only ping for another 10 or so days though.

I was thinking that US subs might be able to pick up the pinging given how amazing their sonar is supposed to be, so that might have been a factor in the redirection of the search.

[Targan]

Unfortunately the voice recorders only store a 2 hours loop. So it is possible that there will be no useful information on it if there was any hypoxia event early on. The data recorder should have everything though. They will only ping for another 10 or so days though.

I was thinking that US subs might be able to pick up the pinging given how amazing their sonar is supposed to be, so that might have been a factor in the redirection of the search.

I thought that the black box pings were radio, not audio