It gets stranger...now Malaysia says they have no idea which direction jet was headed

[Cali_Democrat]

This is one of the craziest situations I can remember:


KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — More than four days after a Malaysian jetliner went missing on route to Beijing, authorities acknowledged Wednesday they didn't know in which direction the plane and its 239 passengers was heading when it disappeared, vastly complicating efforts to find it.

Amid intensifying confusion and occasionally contradictory statements, the country's civil aviation authorities and the military both said the plane may have turned back from its original route toward Vietnam, possibly as far as the Strait of Malacca on the eastern side of the country.

How it might have done this without being clearly detected remained a mystery, raising questions over whether its electrical systems were either knocked out or turned off.

Authorities have not ruled out any possible cause, including mechanical failure, pilot error, sabotage or terrorism in the disappearance of the plane. The 777 is a modern aircraft with an excellent safety record, as does Malaysia Airlines.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20140312/as--malaysia-plane/

[countryjake]

1. The Strait of Malacca is not on the "eastern side of the country".

No wonder nobody seems to be able to find a missing plane.

[Cali_Democrat]

4. Isn't that part of the world pretty densely populated?

It seems odd to me that not a single person, on land or in a boat, would see the plane go down. Wouldn't a crashing jet of that size make a lot of noise?

I dunno. It's just so baffling.

[uppityperson]

5. The world is much bigger than you think. There is a huge amount of unoccupied jungle and ocean.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. LOL. I know....

....but the water area they're searching is close to Malaysia and Indonesia. You would think that there would have been people on boats that saw something.

The straights of malacca are heavily trafficked by ships.

[countryjake]

12. Well, here's one view from a boat in a mountain lake in Southern Thailand...

I live in the foothills of the Cascade Mts. up here in WA and while I might be able to hear an airplane in distress, I sure wouldn't have any clear view of one going down, either close to me or from afar. Tall trees, mountains, and clouds block the sky.

We also have no idea if there actually have been reports to the authorities about spotting the missing Flight 370, aside from one fellow who thought he may have seen odd lights. It was the middle of the night, a red-eye flight, so that reduces the chance it would have been seen by anyone, if it went down.

[longship]

2. I wouldn't use HuffPo for a source on this story.

They seem to be behind the times on this.

The turn-around story reported by Reuters earlier seems to falling apart, according to Malaysia.

There's a lot of sea to search, and reporters are getting anxious. Some things take time and people are making mistakes.

I would stick to primary news sources on this one, and then only if they are well documented.

That's why it's so screwy.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. It's actually an Associated Press article. nt

[longship]

7. It's still out of date.

Malaysia is denying the earlier reports from Reuters that MH370 crossed back over the Maylay Peninsula.

So there's a lot of confusion on this and arguably some poorly sourced, if not outright bad, reportage.

We all may have to wait and see what happens.

They have a whole lot of sea to search and that may take some time.

[Cali_Democrat]

9. Ya Reuters screwed that one up and it spread around the globe

I feel terrible for the families

[longship]

10. Well, the problem is that nobody knows what's true and what is made up.

And you are oh so right. The families are getting screwed over emotionally.

I was skeptical of the Reuters report when I first read it. It did not smell right. There was only a single anonymous source, no confirmation. But Reuters went with it. It took a long time for others to pick it up -- always a bad sign.

We're all going to have to relax and let things happen. Sadly, there's going to be no rest for the families of those people on that plane. I feel for them.

[uppityperson]

6. Yup. And stories, rumors, get passed around from 1 place to another without being verified

in the first place.

[countryjake]

11. No wonder those relatives at the Lido Hotel threw water bottles...

at the Malaysian Airlines representatives during that Beijing briefing yesterday. I can't even imagine the complete frustration on top of agonizing grief they must all be feeling.

I have a feeling that the different languages probably have much to do with a lot of the confusion, facts seem to be getting lost in the translation.

Those poor families...

[jakeXT]

13. "would not be appropriate" for the air force to "issue any official conclusions as to the aircraft's

flight path until a high amount of certainty and verification is achieved."

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

But the air force chief Gen. Rodzali Daud didn't go as far as denying that the plane had traveled hundreds of miles off course.

The air force is still "examining and analyzing all possibilities as regards to the airliner's flight paths subsequent to its disappearance," he said in a statement Wednesday.

Daud said it "would not be appropriate" for the air force to "issue any official conclusions as to the aircraft's flight path until a high amount of certainty and verification is achieved."

He denied, though, that he had made statements to a Malaysian newspaper similar to those that the senior air force official made to CNN.
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/12/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/

(CNN) -- It was 1:30 a.m. when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 lost all communications, including important transponder signals that send data on altitude, direction and speed. Still, it showed up on radar for about 1 hour, 10 minutes longer -- until it vanished, having apparently moved away from its intended destination, hundreds of miles off course.

Those details -- told to CNN by a senior Malaysian air force official, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media -- seemingly shed more light on what happened to the aircraft that mysteriously went missing early Saturday.

But if these assertions are true -- and other reports, citing a different Malaysian official, cast doubt on them -- many big questions remain. Why were the communications lost? Why was the Boeing 777 going the direction it was? And where did it end up?

"Something happened to that airplane, that was obviously out of the norm, that caused it to depart from its normal flight path," said Mark Weiss, a former 777 pilot now with the Washington-based Spectrum Group consulting firm. "... It's difficult not to speculate."
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/11/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane/

[quadrature]

14. the vastness of the Indian Ocean is impossible to comprehend.

if that is where the plane ended up,
it may never be found