JDiver

A fire might not have spread rapidly throughout the plane; it's not always like that. For one, the aircraft was in a very cold and oxygen-poor environment. In theory, such a fire could damage various cables as it moves upward toward the cockpit.

In the theory postulated by this professional pilot, the pilots (who would not use oxygen when there were manifestations of a fire) would have donned smoke hoods whilst trying to rectify the problem, turned the aircraft toward Langkawi, were overcome by smoke and the aircraft continued to fly on its new course until fuel exhaustion.

amirat34

So this type of fire would not alert the ground of such failures in any other way but through transporder?

exilencfc

Can we at least agree that there are only a limited number of possibilities vis:
Vanishingly unlikely: alien abduction, wormhole, divine retribution
Unlikely: Major mechanical/electrical failure (probably involving a fire, unlikely to involve a bomb)
Most likely: pilot suicide, hijack for 'conventional' reasons (ie hold passengers hostage), hijack/attempt 9/11 style attack, hijack/cargo theft, hijack/abduct a particular passenger, hijack/convert plane into bomb

Anything else?

LAS2

I would imagine that every mobile phone on the plane was turned on, and stayed on, once the passengers realized something was amiss.

userasc

IMO the hijack is not the most likely.
The most likely is a catastrophic problem on board, loss of oxygen and the pilot unsuccessfully operating the emergency procedure at this moment resulting everyone on board to pass out..

Letitride3c

Shouldn't local authorities been asked to check if they have any radar tracks for that morning? It's closed enough that maybe India & Sri Lanka's air defenses or military + US base on D. Garcia might've picked up a blip? By now, shouldn't be too difficult to rule out or eliminate if it is another wild goose chase.

:D!

As they are both near the equator, neither Malaysia nor the Maldives observe daylight savings.

exilencfc

My understanding is that official enquiries all have foul play of some kind ahead of a mechanical/electrical failure, hence I seperated them thus in my post.

Personally I think a problem with the plane is less likely than foul play because of the timing - the transponder and ACARS were switched off at the only point in the flight where the aircraft could be expected to be out of air traffic control notice for a few minutes. The subsequent movements of the plane - in particular the way it avoided radar notice - also make me think that it wasn't an engineering failure that caused this.

Letitride3c

UK's Guardian News just reported a short while ago that Indonesia, Malaysia's huge next door neighbor to the south, is refusing to let search planes overfly its airspace or terriority. http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ne-search-live.

Quoting "BBC’s ... said scheduled search flights on Tuesday were abandoned because of the international bureaucracy. "

An old proverb, "the safest place to hide is often the most danagerous" hidden in plain sight where it's least expected to be found, right next or behind them if it was flown south out of ranges of radar (and/or sleeping radar operators) - then crashed or landed. Afterall, KUL's twin towers were rumored to be a target ...

squiddy

I don't think so - the weird part is this:


INMARSTAT proposed tracks are *far* from the Maldives/Diego Garcia, and this only works if the INMARSAT track locations are red herrings. IIRC, the IOL-3 INMARSAT is fairly close to the Maldives - like almost overhead - you'd think they could tell that ....

The last "ping" was at 8:11 am, Malay time, 5:11, Maldives time. So, allowing for some fuzziness in their times, the plane would have had to overfly the Maldives around 6:00 am local, presumably crashing before the next "ping" attempt, which should have happened at 6:11 am Maldives time.

Pretty thin ...

userasc

It doesn't have to be this.. there can be different reasons..

BOSSIE

Here are further eyewitness accounts of the possible sighting of MH370 over Maldives between 6am - 6:30am March 8th in addition to the links I posted previously. This discussion though has more detail.

Tuesday March 18, 2014 MYT 11:40:38 PM
Missing MH370:
Maldives residents report 'low-flying jumbo jet' sighting on March 8

by tan yi liang

PETALING JAYA: Residents of Kuda Huvadhoo in Dhaal Atoll in the Maldives reportedly saw a "low-flying jumbo jet" flying over houses early in the morning of March 8, the same day Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 went missing.

In a report by Maldivian daily Haveeru, residents described the aircraft which flew over Kuda Huvadhoo at around 6.15am as being white, with red stripes across it.

This colour scheme is very similar to the livery used by Malaysia Airlines on its aircraft - including the Boeing 777 used for MH370.

Eyewitnesses who saw the aircraft agreed that it was travelling in a north to south east heading towards Addu, the southern tip of the Maldives, and all commented on the very loud noise the aircraft made when flying over the island.

One noted that the doors on the aircraft could be seen clearly, a fact that was also agreed upon by other eyewitnesses.

"Some people got out of their houses to see what was causing the tremendous noise too," said the eyewitness, and it was reported that Island Councillor, Mohamed Zaheem had said that other residents of Kuda Huvadhoo had spoken up about the incident.

Haveeru had also quoted a local aviation expert, who said it was likely for MH370 to have flown over the Maldives, adding that the possibility of any aircraft flying over the island was extremely low.

MH370, which left KL International Airport for Beijing on March 8, has been in the international spotlight since it disappeared in the early hours of that same day along with its 239 passengers and crew.


Source:http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Natio...-flying-jumbo/

EDIT:
The Haveeruonline report said that the aircraft was travelling at a very low attitude making tremendous noise from "North to South-East, towards the Southern tip of the Maldives – Addu". "I've never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We've seen seaplanes, but I'm sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly," said an eyewitness to Haveeruonline.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/world/live-...ce=ref_article

Hill713

Why is this just now being reported? It seems like if it flew over and people knew about it, they would have reported it to authorities a week ago?

airboss

Accidents with aircraft or ships are usually caused by a small and obscure event of some kind. A crew can become confused or disoriented committing a string of actions which compound the problem until it overwhelms them.

We try to make sense of what we know, the plane seems to be under control, but flies a strange course, altitudes change, electronics are going off at different intervals, it disappears.

I would suggest a fire, a small fire, most likely of human origin, could be electrical from maintenance, or someone sneaking a smoke in the lavatory.
The fire is random, insidious and and nearly impossible to find, or stop.
Fires on aircraft have occurred in the past and the planes have been lost in spite of having a good crew.

Unlikely? Two weeks ago, on essentially the same route, I was aware of someone having a smoke in a lavatory, and not the first time it has happened.

Just a suggested scenario.

adamak

Is it normal to shut off the transponder when there is fire in cockpit? Would that prevent FA from calling ground? Can FA have any sort of communication (even own phone) to let ground know they have 2 pilots passing out?