4 ms·
Hmm. I wonder what the motivation is. I don't think it's terrorism or ransom, since nobody's claimed responsibility yet. Maybe it was a hijacking gone wrong,
by csense 13y ago
Hmm. I wonder what the motivation is. I don't think it's terrorism or ransom, since nobody's claimed responsibility yet.
Maybe it was a hijacking gone wrong, and the plane went down?
Then again, the time gap between the disabling of systems suggests the hijackers ended up with enough control of the aircraft to send someone to see to it (presumably if they were engaged in a desperate battle with the crew and passengers, or if they lost control of the aircraft and the plane was going down, all of the hijackers would be busy dealing with the crisis).
The fact of "significant flying experience" and the disabling of the transponder suggests a professional operation -- maybe some country's intelligence agency wants one of the passengers badly enough they're willing to interfere with a couple hundred other innocent passengers? The outcome doesn't bode well for the missing, since they are now Witness Who Have Seen Too Much.
Or maybe the hijackers want all the passengers because they have a use for a couple hundred humans. Slave trading? Weapons testing? Wouldn't it be simpler (and bring a less thorough investigation) to just kidnap people off the street in some country with poor law enforcement?
The more I think about this, the less sense it makes.
- csense 13y agoThen again, that the hijacker(s) have "significant flying experience" is not all that surprising. Anyone planning to take control of an in-flight aircraft by force, or threat of force, had better know something about how to fly it, or they'll just end up crashing and probably dying without accomplishing much. (Even if it's a suicide mission like 9/11, presumably suicide isn't the only goal -- the 9/11 hijackers wanted to take out some enemy buildings. From their point of view, losing their lives was an unfortunate but tolerable side effect, not the main objective.)
- arrrg 13y agoThere can’t be that many places within reach of that plane where such a plane can land, right? The time window and range are both known, so can’t all those places be checked somehow?
- timr 13y agoMore importantly, there aren't that many places a 777 can land without being picked up by a radar. Probably zero places.
- Zancarius 13y agoI'd imagine that most airports that could handle a 777 would be suspicious if it wasn't a scheduled flight, wasn't an emergency per se, and later learned that an aircraft of that type went missing. And if it was still the case up to the point of disappearance, its latest livery was a bit... flamboyant [1]. Not exactly the sort of thing I'd want to try hiding. [1] http://flightaware.com/photos/view/1342999-1276f63c75e647f6d73bb3dc004b0dfad70ae7ea/aircrafttype/B772 http://flightaware.com/photos/view/1342999-1276f63c75e647f6d...
- IvyMike 13y agoIt varies with conditions, weight, and altitude, but figure something like 4000 feet. But add in the "desperate madmen" factor and who knows. http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/airports/acaps/7772sec3.pdf http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/airports/acaps/7...
- Zancarius 13y agoWas your username inspired by the nuclear test program of the same name? I can't imagine that combination of words being accidental.