EsherFlyer

Jumping from the 'fact' thread for this speculative discussion follow up...

Given that it is unlikely that there are two senders or that the same sender would carry ~400 miles, what would cause a fake ping?

My only (weak) contribution: Dolphins hearing and copying the sound, which would cause major complications!

elkhornne

If the missing plane flew around Indonesia, then is it possible it actually didn't fly as far south as experts think?

WillTravel

The latest reports are that the plane was flown in such a way as to avoid radar detection. How many B777 pilots would know how to do this? Where would he get the information to be able to plot a route in such way? Is this generally available?

JDiver

Anyone who knows the basics about radar could easily set up a plot to evade radar, as it's really pretty basic information and easily available to boot - but whoever was flying this aircraft apparently didn't. And the alleged attempts to evade by "shadowing" a SQ aircraft or / and using terrain avoidance are not knowledgeable about flying, either.

There are plenty of big radar detection "holes" out there, but if a human agent was flying the aircraft they had no idea if they would fly into Australian phased array detection or not.

To those going on about "glassy smooth waters" and the absence of bobbing, etc. there's a reasonable explanation for that. As pictures are worth a thousand words:


It apparently WAS glassy smooth. This is as smooth as the "Drake's Lake" we encountered once whilst we loitered about and enjoyed a fantail barbecue - immediately off Cape Horn.

Flaflyer

These were experienced pilots. The most experienced and senior to be long haul 777 pilots.

They would have flown the standard routes to SE Asia and to Europe many times. They would know where along each route radar contact is lost and where it is regained. Know the gaps and plot a route through them. It is not very difficult for any experienced long haul airline pilot.

And radars often do not look at the actual raw reflection pings. They just use the transponder signal. The air traffic system is based on the pilot NOT turning off the transponder to become invisible.

Wickerman

This question is getting some airtime in the media too.

I had suggested earlier in this thread that whoever was flying the plane has demonstrated the ability to avoid radar. This realization was apparently still part of the investigation, just not given the publicity.

Avoiding radar was possibly not the intention, what the pilot appears to have been doing was avoiding detection, which is not the same thing.
The 'pilot' has turned off the transponder so he is flying invisible, for all but a single dot " . " on any radar scanner.
He then turns into a busy air traffic lane to get lost among the data of other flights, to emerge at the N/W end of the Straights of Malacca.

So avoiding radar 'appears' to have been the intention, but he was really avoiding detection because he can't know for sure the limits of all the surrounding radar scans so he reduces his profile to a single dot and hides in plain sight.

He was successful because no-one realised what had occurred, Malaysian Radar only saw this dot after the plane had disappeared, and they returned to their tapes to give them a second look.

Posnaner

And my view is, the "pilot" tried to achieve both.
Phase One - avoid detection - after turning off the transponder. "Pilot" knew that eventually his path will be recreated, and that was part of his plan. Aircraft kept it's path NW towards Andamans untill it stayed within knowns radar coverage to give impression it was it's intended route. Then came Phase Two - avoiding radar - turning S after "pilot" knew he was clear of ground-based radars range, so he could disappear over Indian Ocean.

Think about it - if it wasn't for those Inmarsat pings only, just the radar data, I guess no one in the world would ever came up with an idea to search for MH370 a thousand miles west of Australia.
It's my opinion that was the plan all along from the beginning.

Of course it's only my assumption, but it's also a scenario which I choose to belive in.

Maluku_Flyer

In that case "he" or "they" should have picked a more westerly course to make sure they would not be detected by the Australian JORN. If "they" were such cunning planners they surely were aware of that system. So, no, not likely.

Wickerman

I couldn't deny that is possible.

If it wasn't for Inmarsat then we would still be looking in the northern hemisphere.
The only tangible evidence we had in early March was that MH370 was at last radar contact heading N/W towards the Amdaman Isles.
Then Inmarsat stepped forward with their 'ping' data analysis, and the whole picture changed.

What I do find questionable is the hypothesis that the 'pilot' flew the plane out across the Indian Ocean until it runs out of fuel.
I just can't see anyone doing that. If you intend to crash then crash it now, not in six hours time, why wait?
[Sending the plane to the depths to make it hard to find suggests there was something on board that needed to be hidden from the world, like what?]
Its my view that if MH370 flew until it ran out of fuel, it is because there was no-one able (or alive?) to steer the plane anywhere else. Which sort of negates the point made by Maluku_Flyer.

This conclusion leads me to see that last turn south as not part of the original plan, possibly due to some altercation in the cockpit.

Lets hope our speculations can all be put to rest pretty soon, one way or the other.

halls120

If you don't want the plane to be found so that the cause of the crash is never uncovered, you try to put the airplane where it will never be found. And if you want to commit suicide without it being able to be confirmed, making the aircraft unrecoverable would accomplish that.

polarbreeze

Why wait? The answer is: to lose the plane without trace. I think he was aiming the plane directly at the deepest point, the Dimantina Deep, and his decisions about speed and altitude were made to make sure he could get there before he ran out of fuel. Why? Because in the mind of someone intent on making the plane disappear without trace, it's the best place to hide the plane. It's not to say that this is where the plane actually ended up because possibly, despite the best laid plans, it ran out of fuel before it got there. But I think it will be found on a direct track between (a) the left turn somewhere near the Andamans and (b) the Dimantina Deep.

polarbreeze

Hmm, so how low would he have to fly to avoid that radar?

Maluku_Flyer

Not at all. I don't think that someone was actively steering the plane down there. Because they would not have chosen a course that risked detection by JORN. So we agree.

polarbreeze

It was more specific than that. It flew this route (the theory says) to avoid Indonesian radar. The reason why that is important is that being detected on a southerly track over Indonesia would have given the game away. That's why the dog-leg around Indonesia - to remove any clue that he was headed south.

Maluku_Flyer

Lower than a widebody can be flown without military ground radar that airliners don't have.