General Chat

eBay? GumTree? PreLoved? SilkRoad II ?

Malaysian air crew don't draw high pay as the home brewed computer flight simulator showed. A 777 lists at around $300million and then of course you need stuff such as engines...

The hot news seems to be that the Malaysian police have "just" found five Indian Ocean runways on the captain's flight simulator including the Maldives and nearby Diego Garcia. There are a number of witnesses in the Maldives who saw a low flying jumbo jet at the critical time slot....

I have been to the Maldives and it is not somewhere where anything much ever happens. That is the whole point of the place.

Diego Garcia is an atoll, British territory since all the islanders were evicted. The Brits lease the islands to the USA who have a massive defense installation there. It is quite capable of garaging a 777. The chances of anybody doing search & rescue within 100 miles of DG are zero.

The Chinese are now looking like mad within their own boarders.

ho hum
This knocks "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3" into a cocked hat for Holywood.
Looks like somebody is desperately seeking some of the passengers for more than just human empathy.

this is a very large object to hide but it must be somewhere.
someone has to know something unless it did crash in the sea, maybe it could be on a mountain side if there are any in the proposed area.

whatever has happened you cannot help but feel sorry for the family members just waiting for info,what a awful emotional turmoil to have to live with.

The Maldives & DG are flat - flat and low as in threatened by climate change and total disappearance.

There are mountains of a sort in south India ( the Ghats or steps ) and Sri Lanka is very hilly but also swarming with people.

If somebody has reprogrammed a flight plan and then flown several hours then they are not likely to crash the plane. Wherever the plane has gone those in control meant it to go there.

The Malaysian police raided the chief pilot's house day 1. Why has it taken them more than a week to say what they found on the FltSim ? No wonder the Chinese are getting edgy.

If the Americans have "rendered" (as they like to put it) a planeload of Chinese then Putin's antics will be a kiddie's tea party.

Brer fox lay low, he ain't sayin' nuttin'.
:-S

This might be a silly question but it has puzzled me since this started. If a plane is flying without it's normal signal fighter jets are sent up to check it out to make sure there's no problems. Now we know this plane turned off all signals, and dropped low possibly below radar...but..it has been mentioned more than once that an UFO of sorts was seen on military radar for at least one country. Why did none of them send jets up to check it out ? I know the US and UK and Canada etc are big on doing this, but you have to think with this area they all basically don't trust each other so why didn't they check it out ?

Rollo. Have only ever heard "rendered" in terms of abattoirs rendering live animals :-S

Hope that's not same meaning. Though human life does seem pretty cheap these days. :-0

I have been thinking abandoned American air force base in Pacific ever since there was no wreckage found. There must be scores of fairly uninhabited places with a huge runway for a 777 that has skimmed near sea level.

so if it has been taken and landed where ever,how are they eating and drinking as it is now 10 days,unless food etc were taken and left there for the arrival of the plane,you would need a whole load of grub for 239 people.

why no contact or demands?

Caroline, on our radio news this morning, it was said that Thai Military radar picked up 'a' plane on their radar, they didn't pass on the information because " they weren't specifically asked for it " :-S - beggars belief...

One of the kiwi passengers has two young sons, the three year old when told his daddy was missing, told his Mum, " I will find Daddy"..... breaks your heart :-(, poor wee man, no doubt there are probably many 'stories' like this...

<3 to all the families affected

maybe it was just a simple accident
and it went down in one piece over the sea :-( :-(

After the pilot said "Good Night", plane's flight was tracked by military radar for a further 55 minutes. It was also tracked by Thailand, who thought it was not important info till yesterday because plane never entered Thai air space and was not a threat to them.

The post from susan-nz graphically illustrates the pain that so many families will be suffering.

I would like to know more about the height changes that the aircraft is supposed to have made. I am not sure if they have been confirmed.

It seems strange that the aircraft would have climbed tp 45,000 feet if it was trying to avoid detection. Was there a struggle in the cockpit? Did both pilots end up incapacitated and the aircraft carry on a partially reprogrammed flightpath?

There was one suggestion that it descended 40,000 feet in a minute. Where did that idea come from? When was it supposed to have happened?

Who knows
I doubt any authority would give up the truth even if it bit them on the bum
If we can be convinced the Libyans committed the bombing over Lockerbie when the us and uk governments clearly knew it was Iran then we can be told anything
I feel so awful for there families
What a cruel predicament to be in

My OH's suggestion - that it was somehow struck on the cockpit (thereby causing the sudden turn - i.e. knocked off course) incapacitating pilots and blowing out transponder etc but that the plane then flew pilotlessly on until running out of fuel thereby explaining continued radar ping and fluctuations in altitudes etc -. . .OH also suggests that the strike could be accidental from another country' and therefore the reason for such lack of info!!

News this morning that wreckage from an aircraft has been found on a beach in Australia..........but as yet nothing to report that it's from the missing plane.

I feel so sorry for relatives of the 'lost' passengers and seeing the mother crying in protest (on last night's tv news) was heart breaking.

edited.. I rec. wrong info re: the beach?....

Mau I saw this on the news this morning, watching of some of the relatives of the passengers was heartbreaking, God knows what they are going through. I hope there will be news soon,whether it be good or bad

Hadn't heard that suspected debris had been washed up on an beach, but there is this
...........

Planes and ships from Australia, New Zealand and the US were in or heading to the area 2,500km (1,550 miles) from Perth to search for the objects.

The largest appeared to be 24m in size, maritime authorities said, but warned they could be unrelated to the plane.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26659951

This story on msn (Australia)

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/03/20/14/13/objects-found-in-malaysia-airlines-search

2500 Km south-west of Perth........ that's a HUGE area, and the water is SO deep.

I may be wrong,but thought that the last "ping" was picked up by Perth reported over a week ago,..so would have thought they would have concentrated on this area before now as well as the Northern arc.
.
They know what they're doing,but this is such a strange case that we are getting all sorts of theories.

Do hope it is getting nearer to an answer and the poor relatives and friends can get some sort of closure.it is so sad .
<3 <3

its very sad news if it is wreckage of the missing plane

my thoughts are with the passengers family and friends :-( :-(

2 weeks and not much closer to finding it
I feel so badly for these families