A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet
There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; its almost disturbing. I tend to look for a simpler explanation, and I find it with the 13,000-foot runway at Pulau Langkawi.
We know the story of MH370: A loaded Boeing 777 departs at midnight from Kuala Lampur, headed to Beijing. A hot night. A heavy aircraft. About an hour out, across the gulf toward Vietnam, the plane goes dark, meaning the transponder and secondary radar tracking go off. Two days later we hear reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar, meaning the plane is tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca.
The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah1 was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. Theyre always in our head. Always. If something happens, you dont want to be thinking about what are you going to doyou already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,676 posts)which had an electrical fire, incapacitating the crew and causing the airplane (an MD-11) to crash into the ocean off Nova Scotia. In that case the fire developed slowly and they had a chance to notify ATC and declare an emergency, but they quickly lost most of their instruments and couldn't see the remaining ones because of the dense smoke in the cockpit. Unable to see the remaining attitude indicator or the horizon in the dark, the pilots possibly became disoriented and lost control of the aircraft (which by then was seriously on fire). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111
Fire is one of the scariest things that can happen on an airplane. I hope we eventually find out what happened to this one.
Iwasthere
(3,158 posts)BlueMTexpat
(15,366 posts)That particular Swissair flight was nicknamed the "UN Express" by those in Geneva, as I was at the time. Many who lived and worked in the GVA area were connected to someone on that flight in one way or another.
My heart goes out to all those who had friends or family members on the Malaysia flight. Their agony is still ongoing, exacerbated by their not knowing what happened at all.