59 replies to this topic

[ollyau]

Saw a link to this speculation: http://keithledgerwo...ing-sia68-sq68.

Edited by ollyau, 17 March 2014 - 04:15 PM.

[Chief_Bean]

Also saw this earlier, but it's ridiculously farfetched in my opinion. There's no way you'd be able to hand-fly an airliner for a prolonged time so that two such large aircraft would be close enough to conceal one's primary radar returns (which I'd imagine is probably more close than they'd be able to get for any period of time...).

[LA_PHX]

Chief_Bean, on 17 March 2014 - 05:17 PM, said:

Also saw this earlier, but it's ridiculously farfetched in my opinion. There's no way you'd be able to hand-fly an airliner for a prolonged time so that two such large aircraft would be close enough to conceal one's primary radar returns (which I'd imagine is probably more close than they'd be able to get for any period of time...).

Aside from that, it would take extremely incredible luck so that the position of primary radars in the region are such that they can only distinguish one metal object rather than two along the entire route.

[William Munny]

Between the Inmarsat and Tomnod data, it appears that the plane slipped away to a location northwest of Australia.  Perhaps the MH370 hijack went bad and the perpetrators gave themselves hypoxia.

[Buziel-411_RED]

I don't like how some news organizations have run with the idea that because the pilot owned an "advanced flight simulator" (PC with FSX and the PMDG 777) that somehow makes him guilty of hijacking or intentionally crashing the aircraft. Of course, we still don't know if the pilot or copilot were responsible for whatever happened, or what happened, but I don't like how the media is grasping at straws and trying to paint him as guilty just because he was apparently passionate about aviation.

[LA_PHX]

Buziel-411_RED, on 17 March 2014 - 09:49 PM, said:

I don't like how some news organizations have run with the idea that because the pilot owned an "advanced flight simulator" (PC with FSX and the PMDG 777) that somehow makes him guilty of hijacking or intentionally crashing the aircraft. Of course, we still don't know if the pilot or copilot were responsible for whatever happened, or what happened, but I don't like how the media is grasping at straws and trying to paint him as guilty just because he was apparently passionate about aviation.

Granted, I haven't watched a ton of TV news, but the little I have watched and the endless amounts of articles I have read, surprisingly they have been pretty fair on that subject.Most of what I have seen is:

• He had an advanced sim. Which is true...he had a pretty impressive setup. "Advanced" is relative but compared to the average FSX/FS9/X-Plane user, yes, his was advanced.
  
• It was seized by police and they are now trying to see what can be gleaned from it.
  
• He could have used it for some come of practice run. We as simmers know that he technically could have but a home-simulator doesn't give you the practice you need.

The problem is the media doesn't understand flight simulation at all and they bring on people who claim impressive credentials and just spout stuff to make the media happy so they can continue to appear/make statements. As far as the media is concerned, anyone who used his sim could have flown the plane themselves, by hand, with no help.

It just comes down to a lack of knowledge, but I for one, am used to it whenever aviation makes mainstream media.

Edited by LA_PHX, 17 March 2014 - 10:40 PM.

[SwitchFX]

The simulator means nothing. I've got an Airbus captain who lives a few blocks away from me and he's got a rad simulator setup. And yes, I just used that word. The outlets are only using his ownership of a simulator to find "clues" that don't exist. My best guess is because both captain and co-captain are Muslim. Even as most of society, keyword being most, has advanced from the heydays of 9/11, there still remains and ingrained anger against Muslims. The two Iranian gentlemen came up on everyone's radar first. Coincidentally, most Iranans escape the country by means like this to seek asylum.

If not the above, then it's simply because there's slips of green-gray colored paper with dead presidents on them. The media is quick to latch onto anything useless. Case in point, we had a very minor earthquake hit the SoCal region early this morning. It managed to wake me up even though I'm a heavy sleeper. Articles about the eartquake kept pouring in until lunch time. The worst damage I managed to find? A coffee shop had some paper cups fall down. The media doesn't care about the fate of that plane or the passengers. They only care about how many views they can gleam off of these articles. The Malaysian government being incompetent doesn't help the cause at all.

As Alex said, the media is bringing in people with great credentials that spout off random drivel. They're just looking for their 15 minutes of fame like any other moron on TV. I fear this incident will play out like the AF 447 crash. Except we'll find the plane in its entirety, albeit broken, years down the road.

Edited by SwitchFX, 17 March 2014 - 11:48 PM.

[LA_PHX]

SwitchFX, on 17 March 2014 - 11:45 PM, said:

The simulator means nothing. I've got an Airbus captain who lives a few blocks away from me and he's got a rad simulator setup. And yes, I just used that word. The outlets are only using his ownership of a simulator to find "clues" that don't exist. My best guess is because both captain and co-captain are Muslim. Even as most of society, keyword being most, has advanced from the heydays of 9/11, there still remains and ingrained anger against Muslims. The two Iranian gentlemen came up on everyone's radar first. Coincidentally, most Iranans escape the country by means like this to seek asylum.

They'd be talking about the simulator whether they were Muslim or not. To the media, simulators are to hijackers like video games are to school shooters. As far as the Iranians go, most people wouldn't have known that was a common way for Iranians to seek asylum. In fact, I, along with many others I have spoken to, were initially surprised to hear how common air travel is with stolen passports and that they aren't regularly checked against the Interpol database. I'd say that's why there was intense media focus on them originally. But that has since died down now that the focus is on the pilots.

At this point, staying up to date on the news is pointless, because I already know what will be reported: "Malaysian authorities are saying the opposite of whatever they said before is now true."

Malaysian investigators, you suck.

[SwitchFX]

Oh yeah, Duck Hunt made me a right killer. As I said, the media is banking on anything remotely interesting. I'm not buying the similator BS they're delivering, if you do, that's fine. We'll agree to disagree.

Anytime I've flown international, passport control barely ever looked at the data and just stamped away. They just want to get through as many people as they can, even with the technology available nowadays to verify the authenticity of a passport. It's the same story in the US, Canada, most of Europe, etc. The last time I flew international, the ageny didn't even look at my picture or scan it. She took it from my hands before I could hand it over, found a page and stamped it. *Shrug*

[LA_PHX]

Buying the simulator BS? I mean, I don't buy that it is significant to the investigation like the media portrays it, that's for sure. But the media latches onto stuff foreign to the general, ignorant population because they can make it sound terrifying. To the normal person out there, an "advanced simulator" sounds scary when they now know the plane is missing and there are theories it is going to be used as some kind of weapon. So yes, I agree with you on the statement that they will do whatever it takes to garner interest = views. I don't necessarily agree that they are focusing on the pilots and the captain's simulator because they are Muslim. Ask 9 out of 10 people on the street and they wouldn't have known Malaysia was a Muslim country to begin with. I'd imagine you'd hear, "but they are Asian" if you told most people on the street.

As for the passport control stuff...I've only used my passport to travel internationally once, and it was to Israel. And they sure do give you a look up-and-down, go through your passport's previous pages, and ask you some questions, and then some if they don't like your answers. When they figured out I was Jewish, they asked me where I learned Hebrew and when. Entering the U.S. though, you are correct, it wasn't much of anything. But in the U.S., if I understood it right, we at least automatically run passports/names across the Interpol database for stolen passports. So it was surprising to hear how often and easy traveling on a stolen passport actually was.

[Brandon-M]

Speaking of the "Flight Simulator" topic, I had a hard time today convincing a few friends that the fact that he had that isn't necessarily a "warning" sign. Like you guys they too had read that the captain had this uber-sim setup, and automatically were convinced that this was a red flag.


...turns out explaining how we get joy out of simming is a far more difficult concept than I had thought previously lol. They just didn't get it. So when people in the media try and say that it's a warning sign..you're just going to need to ignore it. They're not the ones investigating the incident, and as soon as any real news comes along they'll forget what the words "flight simulator" even mean.

Also it's funny, because I'll often get held up at the border. Being a dual citizen and having travelled on both, now I find that a common question for me is..."you entered on a british passport last time .... explain... " so I do find it surprising too that fake passports can be used so easily. I get held up, especially entering the US. Every time my sister enters the US, she gets randomly selected for further screening! ..Every time. haha.

Edited by Brandon-M, 18 March 2014 - 02:05 AM.

[SwitchFX]

LA_PHX, on 18 March 2014 - 01:07 AM, said:

As for the passport control stuff...I've only used my passport to travel internationally once, and it was to Israel. And they sure do give you a look up-and-down, go through your passport's previous pages, and ask you some questions, and then some if they don't like your answers. When they figured out I was Jewish, they asked me where I learned Hebrew and when. Entering the U.S. though, you are correct, it wasn't much of anything. But in the U.S., if I understood it right, we at least automatically run passports/names across the Interpol database for stolen passports. So it was surprising to hear how often and easy traveling on a stolen passport actually was.

Actually, Israel may be the only country that's incredibly stringent when it comes to security. I don't blame them. El Al security is unreal. I've haven't been to Israel yet, but have met a few IDF officers and I'll say this. Any Israeli who went beyond their required military service and can handle themselves is not one to mess around with. Don't like Middle East politics though.

Edited by SwitchFX, 18 March 2014 - 02:11 AM.

[shamupilot]

SwitchFX, on 18 March 2014 - 02:05 AM, said:

Actually, Israel may be the only country that's incredibly stringent when it comes to security. I don't blame them. El Al security is unreal. I've haven't been to Israel yet, but have met a few IDF officers and I'll say this. Any Israeli who went beyond their required military service and can handle themselves is not one to mess around with. Don't like Middle East politics though.

On the topic of Immigration, I took my summer trip to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia. Having gone through Singaporean Passport Control earlier, I was expecting Malaysia to be the same with stringent techniques. But, when I got to the counter, the Immigration lady (who had already scanned multiple passports through the computer like I was accustomed to in Singapore, Seoul, Australia, US, etc...) took one look at my passport, one look at me, stamped it, and I was on my merry way. I remember trying to figure out why she just did that with my passport.

[flyhalf]

The media will print anything to keep the story up and selling papers. Mostly they print total garbage.

I do think this common sense theory presented here

http://www.wired.com...lectrical-fire/

makes a lot of sense.

[Chief_Bean]

flyhalf, on 19 March 2014 - 03:11 AM, said:

The media will print anything to keep the story up and selling papers. Mostly they print total garbage.

I do think this common sense theory presented here

http://www.wired.com...lectrical-fire/

makes a lot of sense.

Things still don't completely add up. If it did keep flying for 5 or so hours after the ACARS/XPDR shut down, the electrical fire theory doesn't really add up. Of course, that doesn't seem 100% clear.

But even so, I'd say the likelihood of an electrical fire knocking out the ACARS completely undetected, and then progressing to knock out the XPDR 2 minutes after a 'normal' ATC hand-off is rather low...

[LA_PHX]

flyhalf, on 19 March 2014 - 03:11 AM, said:

The media will print anything to keep the story up and selling papers. Mostly they print total garbage.

I do think this common sense theory presented here

http://www.wired.com...lectrical-fire/

makes a lot of sense.

If it was indeed a fire that knocked out all the comms/data systems and incapacitated the crew, it would have taken the entire plane down well before the 7+ hours it remained in the air pinging the satellite.

[simmerman]

Speaking of the simulator the pilot used, does anyone recognize this airport?

[LA_PHX]

Oh, I got this. It's the moon.

[Gunfighter]

I wasnt going to weight in on this but I figure what the heck.

Like I have told many people who have asked me, the idea that so many experts know exactly what went on is like predicting the winning lottery numbers. Any number of things could have happened, some more plausible than the last. Speculating on the cause and where the final crash maybe is a job left up to the authorities doing it right now, and that s where I will leave it at. They get paid for it, I do not. So let them do the leg work and speak.

For the media to be sending garbage in and out about this is just comical and downright insulting to the families and friends of those on board MH370.

[shamupilot]

http://www.aol.com/a...nk2&pLid=457282

Well, looks like the Prime Minister of Malaysia has just released a statement officially "confirming" the crash of MH 370 into the Indian Ocean. Looks like this is going to be one looong investigation....

Honestly, I had a feeling the plane crashed the moment I heard about the disappearance. It sucks because the families are now left with more questions than answers and the media isn't helping...