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> The rebuttal piece mostly just flames Langewiesche I would say it raises serious questions about the accuracy of the simulator Langewiesche relies on and his

by Steko 7y ago

> The rebuttal piece mostly just flames Langewiesche I would say it raises serious questions about the accuracy of the simulator Langewiesche relies on and his complete omission of the fact that the Malaysian government absolutely wanted to blame Zahierie, a fanatical supporter of the opposition party, but the evidence was pretty thin. < if Zaharie wanted to commit suicide by flying into the middle of nowhere, didn't he turn right instead of left? Which begs the bigger question of why not just fly the plane straight down into the ocean? The problem with the crazy suicide pilot theory has always been that it's become basically unfalsifiable. Plane went left? Suicide pilot wanted to go left. Plane turned right? Suicide pilot wanted to turn right. Plane turned left again? Suicide pilot must have had his reasons.

Muromec 7y ago
>Which begs the bigger question of why not just fly the plane straight down into the ocean? Probably pilot intended plane never to be found and blame never assigned to him. So it could be intentionally unfalsifiable.
mannykannot 7y ago
> I would say it raises serious questions about the accuracy of the simulator Langewiesche relies on. Irving's claim in this regard is a non-sequitur: the fact that the flight's early stages, after the departure from the planned route, did not follow the simulated track, is beside the point. There is another non-sequitur in Irving's argument about the flap deployment: while deployment would indicate that there was someone flying the airplane at the time of the crash, its non-deployment tells us nothing. And to claim that Langewiesche is wrong because this flap was not literally "shredded into confetti" is just silly. Meanwhile, Irving ignores the satellite evidence that the turn to the south was performed at a higher rate of turn than the automated systems can achieve. Irving also misrepresents the purpose of parts of Langewiesche's story. There is no evidence that Zahierie waited for the first officer to leave the cockpit for a break (or, as Langewiesche actually suggested, told him to go back and check something), but all Langewiesche is doing here is showing that there is a plausible explanation for how Zahierie could take control of the airplane. Similarly, the depressurization theory is merely a plausible explanation for how Zahierie could subdue the passengers, who, in this post-9/11 world, would surely try to break into the cockpit once they became aware of what had happened. As to why Zahierie would initially turn west, there is at least the point that it is the direction in which last contact with radar is achieved as soon as possible (other than cutting across Sumatra, which might attract too much attention from the Indonesian defense forces). It is unfortunate that the Malaysian government attempted to blame Zahierie for the crash when there was no particular evidence that he was responsible, but that does not mean that he was not. I agree with Irving that, putting the simulation aside, the evidence for him being suicidal is very weak (and for him being homicidal, there is none), but I think Langewiesche makes a reasonable case for it being the least implausible explanation that fits the physical evidence. Especially given the Malaysian government's smear tactics and general incompetence, I would like to know more about the simulation's provenance, and whether it could have been faked (even though the Malaysian government dismissed it as irrelevant, which seems to be an odd claim from an entity allegedly trying to blame Zahierie.) I also wonder if there is any evidence of other simulations of flights that end up in the open ocean.
- Steko 7y ago
  > I would like to know more about the simulation's provenance ... I also wonder if there is any evidence of other simulations of flights that end up in the open ocean. I'll second this. What little info we have seen can sound damning, at least as it's usually presented, but by all acounts there were over a hundred (hundreds?) of routes from the simultor, let's see them all and maybe the idea that one went into the southern indian ocean isn't actually so wild when you see a hundred plus of routes going everwhere from malaysia.
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    I was actually thinking of something rather different, but you have a point: if there were a lot of routes going nowhere, this one would not seem unusual... except for the fact that Zaharie apparently repeatedly came back to it, advancing it in steps to the point of fuel exhaustion. That seems very significant to me, assuming it is not a forgery or a misinterpretation of the data. I was thinking that there might be evidence that Zaharie considered what Irving claims (mistakenly, I believe) was the only plausible course if Zaharie wanted to disappear: eastwards across the South China Sea.
stephen_g 7y ago
That the crash was intentional is basically the only plausible explanation given the information at hand though, and given nothing was heard on the radios, the most likely explanation is one of the pilots. If it had been an accident, it would make a lot more sense to have crashed much sooner or otherwise have been more like Helios Airways Flight 522. (In that flight, a technician had set the pressurisation system to manual to do a test and forgot to reset it, and then the pilots didn't properly check the switch on any of the three checks they were meant to do. As they ascended, they became confused by the various alarms that went off and didn't put on their masks. Falling unconscious the plan continued on its autopilot heading towards its destination.) Given MH370 making multiple turns over a long period, and transponder and other electrical systems probably having been manually switched off, it's the most likely explanation. We may never know for sure though.
- Steko 7y ago
  > the only plausible explanation I personally don't find it that plausible. Is it the least implausible explanation? Maybe. > If it had been an accident, it would make a lot more sense to have crashed much sooner or otherwise have been more like Helios Airways Flight 522. This is just hand waving, we can just as easily say "if it was a pilot suicide it would have been like the known pilot suicide crashes". The fact is that there are all sorts of mechanical events many of which bear zero resemblance to the most common or best known ones. > Given MH370 making multiple turns over a long period, and transponder and other electrical systems probably having been manually switched off, it's the most likely explanation. We may never know for sure though. This is circular reasoning. There's no shortage of other reasons the plane could make multiple turns. There are plenty of reasons the transponder stops working. Both could happen due to a mechanical event.

by Steko 7y ago

Muromec 7y ago

>Which begs the bigger question of why not just fly the plane straight down into the ocean? Probably pilot intended plane never to be found and blame never assigned to him. So it could be intentionally unfalsifiable.

mannykannot 7y ago

> I would say it raises serious questions about the accuracy of the simulator Langewiesche relies on. Irving's claim in this regard is a non-sequitur: the fact that the flight's early stages, after the departure from the planned route, did not follow the simulated track, is beside the point. There is another non-sequitur in Irving's argument about the flap deployment: while deployment would indicate that there was someone flying the airplane at the time of the crash, its non-deployment tells us nothing. And to claim that Langewiesche is wrong because this flap was not literally "shredded into confetti" is just silly. Meanwhile, Irving ignores the satellite evidence that the turn to the south was performed at a higher rate of turn than the automated systems can achieve. Irving also misrepresents the purpose of parts of Langewiesche's story. There is no evidence that Zahierie waited for the first officer to leave the cockpit for a break (or, as Langewiesche actually suggested, told him to go back and check something), but all Langewiesche is doing here is showing that there is a plausible explanation for how Zahierie could take control of the airplane. Similarly, the depressurization theory is merely a plausible explanation for how Zahierie could subdue the passengers, who, in this post-9/11 world, would surely try to break into the cockpit once they became aware of what had happened. As to why Zahierie would initially turn west, there is at least the point that it is the direction in which last contact with radar is achieved as soon as possible (other than cutting across Sumatra, which might attract too much attention from the Indonesian defense forces). It is unfortunate that the Malaysian government attempted to blame Zahierie for the crash when there was no particular evidence that he was responsible, but that does not mean that he was not. I agree with Irving that, putting the simulation aside, the evidence for him being suicidal is very weak (and for him being homicidal, there is none), but I think Langewiesche makes a reasonable case for it being the least implausible explanation that fits the physical evidence. Especially given the Malaysian government's smear tactics and general incompetence, I would like to know more about the simulation's provenance, and whether it could have been faked (even though the Malaysian government dismissed it as irrelevant, which seems to be an odd claim from an entity allegedly trying to blame Zahierie.) I also wonder if there is any evidence of other simulations of flights that end up in the open ocean.

Steko 7y ago
> I would like to know more about the simulation's provenance ... I also wonder if there is any evidence of other simulations of flights that end up in the open ocean. I'll second this. What little info we have seen can sound damning, at least as it's usually presented, but by all acounts there were over a hundred (hundreds?) of routes from the simultor, let's see them all and maybe the idea that one went into the southern indian ocean isn't actually so wild when you see a hundred plus of routes going everwhere from malaysia.
- mannykannot 7y ago
  I was actually thinking of something rather different, but you have a point: if there were a lot of routes going nowhere, this one would not seem unusual... except for the fact that Zaharie apparently repeatedly came back to it, advancing it in steps to the point of fuel exhaustion. That seems very significant to me, assuming it is not a forgery or a misinterpretation of the data. I was thinking that there might be evidence that Zaharie considered what Irving claims (mistakenly, I believe) was the only plausible course if Zaharie wanted to disappear: eastwards across the South China Sea.

stephen_g 7y ago

That the crash was intentional is basically the only plausible explanation given the information at hand though, and given nothing was heard on the radios, the most likely explanation is one of the pilots. If it had been an accident, it would make a lot more sense to have crashed much sooner or otherwise have been more like Helios Airways Flight 522. (In that flight, a technician had set the pressurisation system to manual to do a test and forgot to reset it, and then the pilots didn't properly check the switch on any of the three checks they were meant to do. As they ascended, they became confused by the various alarms that went off and didn't put on their masks. Falling unconscious the plan continued on its autopilot heading towards its destination.) Given MH370 making multiple turns over a long period, and transponder and other electrical systems probably having been manually switched off, it's the most likely explanation. We may never know for sure though.

Steko 7y ago
> the only plausible explanation I personally don't find it that plausible. Is it the least implausible explanation? Maybe. > If it had been an accident, it would make a lot more sense to have crashed much sooner or otherwise have been more like Helios Airways Flight 522. This is just hand waving, we can just as easily say "if it was a pilot suicide it would have been like the known pilot suicide crashes". The fact is that there are all sorts of mechanical events many of which bear zero resemblance to the most common or best known ones. > Given MH370 making multiple turns over a long period, and transponder and other electrical systems probably having been manually switched off, it's the most likely explanation. We may never know for sure though. This is circular reasoning. There's no shortage of other reasons the plane could make multiple turns. There are plenty of reasons the transponder stops working. Both could happen due to a mechanical event.