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If this was a movie plot it would be bashed for being unrealistic ... "It doesn't make any sense somebody could hijack a plane that easily - you know, just dea

If this was a movie plot it would be bashed for being unrealistic ... "It doesn't make any sense somebody could hijack a plane that easily - you know, just deactivate the transponder and be gone - it's not that simple, of course - that would be ridiculous - and there is radar everywhere. Also the earth is covered with photo satellites - they would find the plane in no time - you know, a plane is a pretty big thing - haha - so anyway, bit naive, but the acting was alright - so if it wasn't about the transponder plot hole I'd give it a solid 8 ..."

heartbreak 13y ago
If? You mean when this story becomes a movie plot. I give it one year after they find it.
- tomelders 13y ago
  This seems like a great place for me to add my wild and crazy crack pot 99.99% likely to be total nonsense theory to the cacophony of other similar theories... which would make a great plot device for a movie none the less. I'll give you the cliff notes version When handing over from one ATC to another, MH370 adopted the identity of another plane in the area, and the other plane switched off it's transponders (let's call this other plane AB123). Leading to a scenario where the whole world is looking for a plane in the sea when it's actually airborne, but just happens to look like another plane on radar, and they landed it at some backwater airport (AB123's destination) that's under terrorist control (for example, how big a team would you need to take over Port Blair Airport on the Andaman islands? I'm guessing not very many, and no would be any wiser if you ran it as normal) But why do this? Because whoever stole this plane needs to be able to fly MH370 into someones airspace unnoticed to do something bad, and flight AB123 is scheduled to fly into that airspace sometime soon, but if flight AB123 had been hijacked, or had gone missing, it would raise alarms. But to the outside world, flight ABC123 is fine, it's MH370 that everyone is worried about... but flight AB123 is MH370. So where is AB123? I don't know. Maybe thats the plane the oil rig worker saw crash, or maybe they figured out some other way to hide it. Perhaps both planes flew to AB123's destination, but with one flying directly above the other so that it looks like one plane on radar (I don't know how Radar works but this would work for a movie) Also, AB123 might not be a passenger jet, it could be a cargo plane, or some other kind of plane that doesn't come with a bunch of passengers that people would miss. Anyhoot, that's my crazy theory and even I don't believe it, but a small part of me hope's it's right because the people on Flight MH370 could still be alive. At the very least, I think this is a good plot for a movie.
  - hga 13y ago
    Complication: when the plane's "secondary radar" stopped (the transponders that report things like ID and altitude), both Malaysian and Vietnamese "primary radar" could still see it (the unassisted bounce back of the radar's radio waves). If they saw two biggish pips in the general vicinity they'd likely have said something by now, at least the Vietnamese, who've got to be getting annoyed by Malaysia's handling of this. E.g. per Wikipedia 'According to the Vietnamese deputy minister of transport, Pham Quy Tieu, "We informed Malaysia on the day we lost contact with the flight that we noticed the flight turned back west but Malaysia did not respond."'
    - tomelders 13y ago
      I don't know what you're saying, but I assume you've found a fundamental flaw with my theory. Two biggish pips?
      - hga 13y ago
        Sorry, I wasn't clear enough, and thinking further, probably wrong on the main point: You postulate two planes in the same area, that would look roughly the same on primary radar when their transponder was off (or maybe I misread you/assumed incorrectly about both looking big, see below). "Biggish" in that the 777 is a rather large aircraft with a presumably large radar cross section, "pip" as in a blob of light appearing on the radar's screen. Going further, when they looked at the recordings of what their radar(s) saw, they'd see one "biggish pip" suddenly returning transponder information and another stop ... it's hard to imagine coordination to the split second, although it's possible. Ah, I see one way in which I could be wrong: assuming the use of a small jet, it could be configured with a powerful enough transponder to simulate the 777's. So both pips would not necessarily be big, and if the location was carefully chosen maybe the small jet's wouldn't be seen by the radars. And that's more likely, after all, if they had a big jet to start with....
        tomelders 13y ago
        So what you're saying is I'm 100% correct and this is definitely what happened? But back to being serious for a second. If mh370 really did keep on flying for five hours on the route that has been suggested, is there any other way it could go unnoticed? I'd like to think that it's impossible for something the size of a 777 to fly unhindered through the sky over several countries post 9/11. But then again, I had hoped someone couldn't make a plane vanish seemingly at the flick of a switch. You seem to know your onions, is it possible to have two planes flying close enough together that they show up as one blip on radar? What's the pixel to kilometre ratio on those things?

heartbreak 13y ago

If? You mean when this story becomes a movie plot. I give it one year after they find it.

tomelders 13y ago
This seems like a great place for me to add my wild and crazy crack pot 99.99% likely to be total nonsense theory to the cacophony of other similar theories... which would make a great plot device for a movie none the less. I'll give you the cliff notes version When handing over from one ATC to another, MH370 adopted the identity of another plane in the area, and the other plane switched off it's transponders (let's call this other plane AB123). Leading to a scenario where the whole world is looking for a plane in the sea when it's actually airborne, but just happens to look like another plane on radar, and they landed it at some backwater airport (AB123's destination) that's under terrorist control (for example, how big a team would you need to take over Port Blair Airport on the Andaman islands? I'm guessing not very many, and no would be any wiser if you ran it as normal) But why do this? Because whoever stole this plane needs to be able to fly MH370 into someones airspace unnoticed to do something bad, and flight AB123 is scheduled to fly into that airspace sometime soon, but if flight AB123 had been hijacked, or had gone missing, it would raise alarms. But to the outside world, flight ABC123 is fine, it's MH370 that everyone is worried about... but flight AB123 is MH370. So where is AB123? I don't know. Maybe thats the plane the oil rig worker saw crash, or maybe they figured out some other way to hide it. Perhaps both planes flew to AB123's destination, but with one flying directly above the other so that it looks like one plane on radar (I don't know how Radar works but this would work for a movie) Also, AB123 might not be a passenger jet, it could be a cargo plane, or some other kind of plane that doesn't come with a bunch of passengers that people would miss. Anyhoot, that's my crazy theory and even I don't believe it, but a small part of me hope's it's right because the people on Flight MH370 could still be alive. At the very least, I think this is a good plot for a movie.
- hga 13y ago
  Complication: when the plane's "secondary radar" stopped (the transponders that report things like ID and altitude), both Malaysian and Vietnamese "primary radar" could still see it (the unassisted bounce back of the radar's radio waves). If they saw two biggish pips in the general vicinity they'd likely have said something by now, at least the Vietnamese, who've got to be getting annoyed by Malaysia's handling of this. E.g. per Wikipedia 'According to the Vietnamese deputy minister of transport, Pham Quy Tieu, "We informed Malaysia on the day we lost contact with the flight that we noticed the flight turned back west but Malaysia did not respond."'
  - tomelders 13y ago
    I don't know what you're saying, but I assume you've found a fundamental flaw with my theory. Two biggish pips?
    - hga 13y ago
      Sorry, I wasn't clear enough, and thinking further, probably wrong on the main point: You postulate two planes in the same area, that would look roughly the same on primary radar when their transponder was off (or maybe I misread you/assumed incorrectly about both looking big, see below). "Biggish" in that the 777 is a rather large aircraft with a presumably large radar cross section, "pip" as in a blob of light appearing on the radar's screen. Going further, when they looked at the recordings of what their radar(s) saw, they'd see one "biggish pip" suddenly returning transponder information and another stop ... it's hard to imagine coordination to the split second, although it's possible. Ah, I see one way in which I could be wrong: assuming the use of a small jet, it could be configured with a powerful enough transponder to simulate the 777's. So both pips would not necessarily be big, and if the location was carefully chosen maybe the small jet's wouldn't be seen by the radars. And that's more likely, after all, if they had a big jet to start with....
      - tomelders 13y ago
        So what you're saying is I'm 100% correct and this is definitely what happened? But back to being serious for a second. If mh370 really did keep on flying for five hours on the route that has been suggested, is there any other way it could go unnoticed? I'd like to think that it's impossible for something the size of a 777 to fly unhindered through the sky over several countries post 9/11. But then again, I had hoped someone couldn't make a plane vanish seemingly at the flick of a switch. You seem to know your onions, is it possible to have two planes flying close enough together that they show up as one blip on radar? What's the pixel to kilometre ratio on those things?