5 ms·

Radar data suggests missing Malaysia plane flown deliberately toward Andamans

35 points by ghosh 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mschuster91 13y ago
The problem still remains: where the fuck did that machine vanish? I mean, you can't exactly land a big fat Boeing on a strip of bush without any ground tech support... you need a full-featured airport unless you want to risk the machine going up in a huge pile of burning mess upon the landing. Obviously no airport in the region (or planespotters) have noticed the machine landing... Then, no "oh yeah, we blew up" confessions from terrorists or ransom demands either. Something smells like fish. Weeks-old rotten fish. edit: Okay, you can land a Boeing on an improvised landing strip. But preparing a 2km long, 45m wide strip in the middle of nowhere needs lots of manpower to prepare and certainly attracts attention. Unless a nation state sponsored this, no way that this plane was hijacked for passengers/cargo.
- masklinn 13y ago
  > I mean, you can't exactly land a big fat Boeing on a strip of bush without any ground tech support... A 777 needs between 800m (dry runway and low weight at sea level) and 2000m (altitude, loaded, wet runway) excluding security buffer. You do need a flat and clean-ish surface (definitely not bush strips), but you don't need a "full-featured airport" just to land a plane, especially if you don't expect to get it in the air again.
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    We can assume the plane was half-loaded (after hours of flight, the fuel should be mostly used up, so the passengers+cargo remain as freight). The point is (as I wrote one post further down): you'll need a ~1.5km-2km long runway to get the plane down in one piece or with everyone alive (depends on what you actually want with that plane). And that is what smells here. Something like this (or even setting up a 2km landing strip broad enough to allow a Boeing to land!) would definitely not go unnoticed.
    - masklinn 13y ago
      > you'll need a ~1.5km-2km long runway to get the plane down in one piece or with everyone alive You'll need a ~1500m long piece of hard and flat-ish ground, a good road will do (again especially if you don't need the plane to get up in the air again, at least on short order). With risks, granted, but it'll do. > Something like this (or even setting up a 2km landing strip broad enough to allow a Boeing to land!) Width would probably be a bigger issue than length actually.
      - mschuster91 13y ago
        >You'll need a ~1500m long piece of hard and flat-ish ground, a good road will do We're not exactly talking about developed countries here, a 45m wide strip is a German Autobahn - and thus bound to be having at least one driver a hour, so I don't see a viable way of putting down a plane in these relatively poor countries fully unnoticed.
        masklinn 13y ago
        The road itself needs not be as wide as the plane's wingspan though, only wider than the track (11m[0]). Granted finding a good-quality 15~20m wide road with 20~30m of nothing whatsoever on either side remains a difficulty, but still a much lower one than having a fully equipped airport on hands (basically, you're looking for a 4 lane road) [0] http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/jetliner/b777/b777_schem_01.gif http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/jetliner/b777/b777_sche...
- gaius 13y ago
  Not a "problem" at all - the sea is very, very big, and lots of it isn't covered by any sort of RADAR or other surveillance. Even major shipping lanes aren't anything like highways on land, there is usually no-one looking at any given patch of sea.
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    Yes, but if you hijack a plane, odds are high that you are after something. A sea landing has a high chance of killing everyone on board (if you're after a person), and next to no way of getting into the cargo hold (if you're after cargo). If you're just after terrorism, then doing a 9/11-style attack would be far more effective.
    - kubiiii 13y ago
      If you hijack a plane odds are high that you screw up everything and crash.
- downandout 13y ago
  Then, no "oh yeah, we blew up" confessions from terrorists or ransom demands either. Maybe terrorists are just getting smarter. The uncertainty surrounding this incident has captured the world's attention in a way that yet another extremist hijacking would not. If someone truly wanted to cause terror among the flying public in a jaded post-9/11 world, this was the way to do it. In fact, it is somewhat curious that none of these organizations have taken advantage of the uncertainty and stepped forward to claim responsibility, even if they had nothing to do with it. Surely there are many groups that would love to take credit for it. Perhaps they are playing the long game.
  - mschuster91 13y ago
    > In fact, it is somewhat curious that none of these organizations have taken advantage of the uncertainty and stepped forward to claim responsibility, even if they had nothing to do with it. Yeah, that struck me too. Especially since the murder of Osama bin Laden, I'd thought Al-Qaeda could use another big-profile terror case attributed to them, and this is the perfect solution for their PR problems...
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Well this is a bit absurd, but what if the parachuted out of it? I have no idea what the motivation for hijacking it would be, though. Perhaps stealing something on the plane, or kidnapping someone. Again, just crazy speculation.
- Shivetya 13y ago
  If we go the terrorism route. First, you only declare you have done it if you don't plan on doing it again. This could merely be a test run. Determine if something is possible and then hide the evidence of what you have done. Examples, killing an entire load of passengers in flight so a dead plane arrives/crashes at its destination. The damage to the industry would be immense. How its done is from simply vacating the air in the cabin to poisoning them. If not terrorism, who would take a plane that far off course except to possibly steal it or someone on it? That is more far fetched than simple terrorism. I would have preferred it to be a mechanical issue, but that they tracked the plane off course and for so long makes that difficult, unless of course the pilots detected a decompression issue and tried to turn around. Even then they would simply go low and continue on, I cannot for see any reason no one would have raised contact unless they were prevented from doing so.
- epochwolf 13y ago
  Eh.. "The pilots landed the airliner on a narrow grass levee at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in the Michoud area of eastern New Orleans, bringing the airplane to a safe stop.[3]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TACA_Flight_110 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TACA_Flight_110 And note, after replacing the engines, two test pilots flew the plane off the levee. While not recommended or safe, a 737 can land and take off from a rough field.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    Yep, although the 737's a much, much smaller plane than the 777 (under half the seating capacity, wingspan or range, 25% of the weight)
ccozan 13y ago
The latest development is that the Chinese have measured a small earth quake in the sea, 1.5h after the plane has vanished. Which kind of explains why we don't find it or we shouldn't seek where it could land: it's on sea floor. EDIT: source http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2014planemissing/2014-03/14/content_17346768.htm http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2014planemissing/2014-03/...
- masklinn 13y ago
  A plane on sea floor generates plenty of debris when it touches down on water, see AF 447.
- josephlord 13y ago
  Surely a plane is too low density to cause even a "small earth quake" when it sinks to the bottom of the sea (probably in many pieces). Could a shockwave from the impact on the surface of the sea be measured as a small earthquake?
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - rjsw 13y ago
    It doesn't have to impact the sea floor, the Kursk explosion was detected by seismographs.
    - masklinn 13y ago
      The initial explosion was barely detectable from nearby Finnmark[0] (and undetected from Svalbard or Hedmark) yet was 500kg of concentrated H2O2 and 1000kg of kerosene blowing up. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOSAR_Kursk_sesmic_readings.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOSAR_Kursk_sesmic_reading...
  - masklinn 13y ago
    Unless it was packed with explosives and blew up when touching bottom Kursk-style[0], that's unlikely. Not to mention the whole area is 80m deep tops, usually much less than that. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOSAR_Kursk_sesmic_readings.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOSAR_Kursk_sesmic_reading... the barely visible initial event (1.5 Richter scale) was caused by the explosion of 500kg of kerosene and 1000kg of concentrated high-test peroxide[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-test_peroxide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-test_peroxide 85~95% H2O2, cheap and stable until in contact with a catalyst, then it decomposes explosively (~5000x volume increase) into O2 and H2O steam
userbinator 13y ago
All these "we think it went that way!" and then a short while later "no it didn't, it might've went that way!" articles in the news are almost facepalm-worthy. I'm not one to believe in most conspiracy theories, but it really makes me wonder if they already know what happened to the plane but just want to stretch this process out for some reason...
- gus_massa 13y ago
  Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by linkbaits. People will read whatever "new" about the plane is there. They will read the new, the correction, and the new correct version the correction, and the ... If your newspaper don't publish today's version, the people will go to another paper to read it. To solve the problem, you must find a business model where the newspapers are rewarded for publishing correct information, and not the most recent gossip.
  - knowaveragejoe 13y ago
    And to solve that problem, you must find an alternate societal mindset.
- jmpeax 13y ago
  Also annoying is the news reporting dozens of "officials are not ruling out ______". Really? Officials are not ruling out a model that they have no data against but has higher than 0% chance of occurring?
- de_dave 13y ago
  The fact that none of the countries in the region want to disclose the capabilities of their defence systems isn't helping: http://my.news.yahoo.com/distrust-adding-malaysian-jet-confusion-analysts-181507988.html http://my.news.yahoo.com/distrust-adding-malaysian-jet-confu...
DanielBMarkham 13y ago
There are a series of topics that TV shows love to go over, unsolved mysteries. What happened to Amelia Earhart? How about that Navy flight that took off and disappeared? I think we're now seeing, in realtime, another one of these stories begin. Very interesting. I have a simple question that I haven't seen addressed anywhere: assuming that somebody on the plane left their cell phone on and forgot to turn it off, or that somebody tried to use their phone in-flight, wouldn't there be a record on the ground cell towers of that particular phone's SID "pinging" the tower as the plane flew overhead? Might be something to look into.
- davedx 13y ago
  I thought it was supposed to have flown over the sea?
bambax 13y ago
Stealing a plane with 237 people on board is a great story but no version that I have read address the question of how you prevent every one of those 237 people from texting about it? Even if you're willing to kill them all it takes some time that they could use to try and make some sort of signal. This plane fell into the sea and we'll find it eventually. The sea is vast.
- jamornh 13y ago
  Couldn't whoever was piloting the plane act like they were still going to the right destination and then land them in a place where none of their phones have connection? Then it wouldn't be a problem to slowly move all the hostages to a holding area or something. Of course I don't think this was the case but it would be an explanation of why there has been no text messages etc if this were to happen.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  Cigarette-box-sized GSM/radio jammers, dead cheap and you can disguise them e.g. as a gaming console, replacement battery pack or such. Additionally, a radio jammer could explain why there were no other radio comms from that plane, except the satellite uplink of the plane GSM picocell and the sat uplink of the engine MCU.
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    I don't think you know what you're talking about A GPS jammer will do absolutely nothing to a plane. Edit: A GSM jammer, even less A "radio jammer"? For what frequency? For what range? VHF, HF?
    - masklinn 13y ago
      > A "radio jammer"? For what frequency? For what range? VHF, HF? Er… GSM?
      - raverbashing 13y ago
zokier 13y ago
This story desperately needs some sort of map or chart.
- TillE 13y ago
  Via The Guardian's live updates: https://twitter.com/sgify/status/444421777280614400/photo/1 https://twitter.com/sgify/status/444421777280614400/photo/1
tomelders 13y ago
Port Blair Airport is on that island.
- sentenza 13y ago
  But then it is also on the video footage collected by various spy satellites. If anything remotely looking like a plane this size had landed there in the correct timeframe, there'd be police/military personel kicking in doors down there right now. Since we haven't heared of any such operation (which would be extremely difficult to keep secret, given the circumstances), the reasonable assumption remains that the plane fell into the sea.
  - lotsofmangos 13y ago
    Spy satellites only see what they are pointed at and there are not enough of them to constantly watch all airports.
    - sentenza 13y ago
      Admittedly, I don't know enough about the number of spy satellites out there. My assumption was that at this point, everything is being watched, because if they could they would and who is to say they can't. In thinking so, I might have underestimated the size of the planet a bit.
      - lotsofmangos 13y ago
        heh :) it is worth reflecting that it is far easier to convince people that you are in control than it is to actually be in control, and for most purposes they are almost the same thing also, if you have to fire missiles at stuff, you probably aren't in control, given that if you are in control you do not need to and missiles are expensive
junto 13y ago
So much conjecture and media picking at slivers of 2nd hand evidence. Occam's Razor. The plane fell in the sea. It is a very very big space to search.
- twistedpair 13y ago
  If you want the what ifs in detail, see the Airliners.net forum. 4000+ posts so far from pilots and other aviation professionals that are far more knowledgeable than HN readers. Every technical aspect of this disaster that you could want to know. http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/6022602/ http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/re...
ajarmst 13y ago
Radar can detect mental states like "deliberately" now? That's mighty good radar. Further, any story with the phrase "sources familiar with" should be immediately discounted, and its author told to feel shame.

35 points by ghosh 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

The problem still remains: where the fuck did that machine vanish? I mean, you can't exactly land a big fat Boeing on a strip of bush without any ground tech support... you need a full-featured airport unless you want to risk the machine going up in a huge pile of burning mess upon the landing. Obviously no airport in the region (or planespotters) have noticed the machine landing... Then, no "oh yeah, we blew up" confessions from terrorists or ransom demands either. Something smells like fish. Weeks-old rotten fish. edit: Okay, you can land a Boeing on an improvised landing strip. But preparing a 2km long, 45m wide strip in the middle of nowhere needs lots of manpower to prepare and certainly attracts attention. Unless a nation state sponsored this, no way that this plane was hijacked for passengers/cargo.

masklinn 13y ago
> I mean, you can't exactly land a big fat Boeing on a strip of bush without any ground tech support... A 777 needs between 800m (dry runway and low weight at sea level) and 2000m (altitude, loaded, wet runway) excluding security buffer. You do need a flat and clean-ish surface (definitely not bush strips), but you don't need a "full-featured airport" just to land a plane, especially if you don't expect to get it in the air again.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  We can assume the plane was half-loaded (after hours of flight, the fuel should be mostly used up, so the passengers+cargo remain as freight). The point is (as I wrote one post further down): you'll need a ~1.5km-2km long runway to get the plane down in one piece or with everyone alive (depends on what you actually want with that plane). And that is what smells here. Something like this (or even setting up a 2km landing strip broad enough to allow a Boeing to land!) would definitely not go unnoticed.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    > you'll need a ~1.5km-2km long runway to get the plane down in one piece or with everyone alive You'll need a ~1500m long piece of hard and flat-ish ground, a good road will do (again especially if you don't need the plane to get up in the air again, at least on short order). With risks, granted, but it'll do. > Something like this (or even setting up a 2km landing strip broad enough to allow a Boeing to land!) Width would probably be a bigger issue than length actually.
    - mschuster91 13y ago
      >You'll need a ~1500m long piece of hard and flat-ish ground, a good road will do We're not exactly talking about developed countries here, a 45m wide strip is a German Autobahn - and thus bound to be having at least one driver a hour, so I don't see a viable way of putting down a plane in these relatively poor countries fully unnoticed.
      - masklinn 13y ago
        The road itself needs not be as wide as the plane's wingspan though, only wider than the track (11m[0]). Granted finding a good-quality 15~20m wide road with 20~30m of nothing whatsoever on either side remains a difficulty, but still a much lower one than having a fully equipped airport on hands (basically, you're looking for a 4 lane road) [0] http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/jetliner/b777/b777_schem_01.gif http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/jetliner/b777/b777_sche...
gaius 13y ago
Not a "problem" at all - the sea is very, very big, and lots of it isn't covered by any sort of RADAR or other surveillance. Even major shipping lanes aren't anything like highways on land, there is usually no-one looking at any given patch of sea.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  Yes, but if you hijack a plane, odds are high that you are after something. A sea landing has a high chance of killing everyone on board (if you're after a person), and next to no way of getting into the cargo hold (if you're after cargo). If you're just after terrorism, then doing a 9/11-style attack would be far more effective.
  - kubiiii 13y ago
    If you hijack a plane odds are high that you screw up everything and crash.
downandout 13y ago
Then, no "oh yeah, we blew up" confessions from terrorists or ransom demands either. Maybe terrorists are just getting smarter. The uncertainty surrounding this incident has captured the world's attention in a way that yet another extremist hijacking would not. If someone truly wanted to cause terror among the flying public in a jaded post-9/11 world, this was the way to do it. In fact, it is somewhat curious that none of these organizations have taken advantage of the uncertainty and stepped forward to claim responsibility, even if they had nothing to do with it. Surely there are many groups that would love to take credit for it. Perhaps they are playing the long game.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  > In fact, it is somewhat curious that none of these organizations have taken advantage of the uncertainty and stepped forward to claim responsibility, even if they had nothing to do with it. Yeah, that struck me too. Especially since the murder of Osama bin Laden, I'd thought Al-Qaeda could use another big-profile terror case attributed to them, and this is the perfect solution for their PR problems...
Houshalter 13y ago
Well this is a bit absurd, but what if the parachuted out of it? I have no idea what the motivation for hijacking it would be, though. Perhaps stealing something on the plane, or kidnapping someone. Again, just crazy speculation.
Shivetya 13y ago
If we go the terrorism route. First, you only declare you have done it if you don't plan on doing it again. This could merely be a test run. Determine if something is possible and then hide the evidence of what you have done. Examples, killing an entire load of passengers in flight so a dead plane arrives/crashes at its destination. The damage to the industry would be immense. How its done is from simply vacating the air in the cabin to poisoning them. If not terrorism, who would take a plane that far off course except to possibly steal it or someone on it? That is more far fetched than simple terrorism. I would have preferred it to be a mechanical issue, but that they tracked the plane off course and for so long makes that difficult, unless of course the pilots detected a decompression issue and tried to turn around. Even then they would simply go low and continue on, I cannot for see any reason no one would have raised contact unless they were prevented from doing so.
epochwolf 13y ago
Eh.. "The pilots landed the airliner on a narrow grass levee at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in the Michoud area of eastern New Orleans, bringing the airplane to a safe stop.[3]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TACA_Flight_110 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TACA_Flight_110 And note, after replacing the engines, two test pilots flew the plane off the levee. While not recommended or safe, a 737 can land and take off from a rough field.
- masklinn 13y ago
  Yep, although the 737's a much, much smaller plane than the 777 (under half the seating capacity, wingspan or range, 25% of the weight)

ccozan 13y ago

The latest development is that the Chinese have measured a small earth quake in the sea, 1.5h after the plane has vanished. Which kind of explains why we don't find it or we shouldn't seek where it could land: it's on sea floor. EDIT: source http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2014planemissing/2014-03/14/content_17346768.htm http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2014planemissing/2014-03/...

masklinn 13y ago
A plane on sea floor generates plenty of debris when it touches down on water, see AF 447.
josephlord 13y ago
Surely a plane is too low density to cause even a "small earth quake" when it sinks to the bottom of the sea (probably in many pieces). Could a shockwave from the impact on the surface of the sea be measured as a small earthquake?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rjsw 13y ago
  It doesn't have to impact the sea floor, the Kursk explosion was detected by seismographs.
  - masklinn 13y ago
    The initial explosion was barely detectable from nearby Finnmark[0] (and undetected from Svalbard or Hedmark) yet was 500kg of concentrated H2O2 and 1000kg of kerosene blowing up. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOSAR_Kursk_sesmic_readings.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOSAR_Kursk_sesmic_reading...
- masklinn 13y ago
  Unless it was packed with explosives and blew up when touching bottom Kursk-style[0], that's unlikely. Not to mention the whole area is 80m deep tops, usually much less than that. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOSAR_Kursk_sesmic_readings.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NOSAR_Kursk_sesmic_reading... the barely visible initial event (1.5 Richter scale) was caused by the explosion of 500kg of kerosene and 1000kg of concentrated high-test peroxide[1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-test_peroxide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-test_peroxide 85~95% H2O2, cheap and stable until in contact with a catalyst, then it decomposes explosively (~5000x volume increase) into O2 and H2O steam

userbinator 13y ago

All these "we think it went that way!" and then a short while later "no it didn't, it might've went that way!" articles in the news are almost facepalm-worthy. I'm not one to believe in most conspiracy theories, but it really makes me wonder if they already know what happened to the plane but just want to stretch this process out for some reason...

gus_massa 13y ago
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by linkbaits. People will read whatever "new" about the plane is there. They will read the new, the correction, and the new correct version the correction, and the ... If your newspaper don't publish today's version, the people will go to another paper to read it. To solve the problem, you must find a business model where the newspapers are rewarded for publishing correct information, and not the most recent gossip.
- knowaveragejoe 13y ago
  And to solve that problem, you must find an alternate societal mindset.
jmpeax 13y ago
Also annoying is the news reporting dozens of "officials are not ruling out ______". Really? Officials are not ruling out a model that they have no data against but has higher than 0% chance of occurring?
de_dave 13y ago
The fact that none of the countries in the region want to disclose the capabilities of their defence systems isn't helping: http://my.news.yahoo.com/distrust-adding-malaysian-jet-confusion-analysts-181507988.html http://my.news.yahoo.com/distrust-adding-malaysian-jet-confu...

DanielBMarkham 13y ago

There are a series of topics that TV shows love to go over, unsolved mysteries. What happened to Amelia Earhart? How about that Navy flight that took off and disappeared? I think we're now seeing, in realtime, another one of these stories begin. Very interesting. I have a simple question that I haven't seen addressed anywhere: assuming that somebody on the plane left their cell phone on and forgot to turn it off, or that somebody tried to use their phone in-flight, wouldn't there be a record on the ground cell towers of that particular phone's SID "pinging" the tower as the plane flew overhead? Might be something to look into.

davedx 13y ago
I thought it was supposed to have flown over the sea?

bambax 13y ago

Stealing a plane with 237 people on board is a great story but no version that I have read address the question of how you prevent every one of those 237 people from texting about it? Even if you're willing to kill them all it takes some time that they could use to try and make some sort of signal. This plane fell into the sea and we'll find it eventually. The sea is vast.

jamornh 13y ago
Couldn't whoever was piloting the plane act like they were still going to the right destination and then land them in a place where none of their phones have connection? Then it wouldn't be a problem to slowly move all the hostages to a holding area or something. Of course I don't think this was the case but it would be an explanation of why there has been no text messages etc if this were to happen.
mschuster91 13y ago
Cigarette-box-sized GSM/radio jammers, dead cheap and you can disguise them e.g. as a gaming console, replacement battery pack or such. Additionally, a radio jammer could explain why there were no other radio comms from that plane, except the satellite uplink of the plane GSM picocell and the sat uplink of the engine MCU.
- raverbashing 13y ago
  I don't think you know what you're talking about A GPS jammer will do absolutely nothing to a plane. Edit: A GSM jammer, even less A "radio jammer"? For what frequency? For what range? VHF, HF?
  - masklinn 13y ago
    > A "radio jammer"? For what frequency? For what range? VHF, HF? Er… GSM?
    - raverbashing 13y ago

zokier 13y ago

This story desperately needs some sort of map or chart.

TillE 13y ago
Via The Guardian's live updates: https://twitter.com/sgify/status/444421777280614400/photo/1 https://twitter.com/sgify/status/444421777280614400/photo/1

tomelders 13y ago

Port Blair Airport is on that island.

sentenza 13y ago
But then it is also on the video footage collected by various spy satellites. If anything remotely looking like a plane this size had landed there in the correct timeframe, there'd be police/military personel kicking in doors down there right now. Since we haven't heared of any such operation (which would be extremely difficult to keep secret, given the circumstances), the reasonable assumption remains that the plane fell into the sea.
- lotsofmangos 13y ago
  Spy satellites only see what they are pointed at and there are not enough of them to constantly watch all airports.
  - sentenza 13y ago
    Admittedly, I don't know enough about the number of spy satellites out there. My assumption was that at this point, everything is being watched, because if they could they would and who is to say they can't. In thinking so, I might have underestimated the size of the planet a bit.
    - lotsofmangos 13y ago
      heh :) it is worth reflecting that it is far easier to convince people that you are in control than it is to actually be in control, and for most purposes they are almost the same thing also, if you have to fire missiles at stuff, you probably aren't in control, given that if you are in control you do not need to and missiles are expensive

junto 13y ago

So much conjecture and media picking at slivers of 2nd hand evidence. Occam's Razor. The plane fell in the sea. It is a very very big space to search.

twistedpair 13y ago
If you want the what ifs in detail, see the Airliners.net forum. 4000+ posts so far from pilots and other aviation professionals that are far more knowledgeable than HN readers. Every technical aspect of this disaster that you could want to know. http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/6022602/ http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/re...

ajarmst 13y ago

Radar can detect mental states like "deliberately" now? That's mighty good radar. Further, any story with the phrase "sources familiar with" should be immediately discounted, and its author told to feel shame.