7 ms·

Cops find five Indian Ocean practice runways in MH370 pilot’s simulator

35 points by hkphooey 13y ago

beaner 13y ago
What if it stopped there to refuel and then took off again?
- notahacker 13y ago
  If you assume the conspiracy involves the Air Traffic Control and fuel handling services at Male Airport, plus any tourists or Maldivians in the two population centres a few hundred metres away, then the theory of them sneaking a massive jet in and out of Male airport without anybody noticing becomes a distinct possibility.
  - beaner 13y ago
    Just thinking out loud I guess. Altneratively: it went to Diego Garcia, and the US military is in on it. No civilians or public air services required. It refueled and launched again from there. Don't necessarily believe these are likely, it's just interesting to think about.
hkphooey 13y ago
The five airports are located in the Maldives, Diego Garcia, India and Sri Lanka. News out today claims multiple eye-witnesses in the Maldives: "Residents of the remote Maldives island of Kuda Huvadhoo in Dhaal Atoll have reported seeing a "low flying jumbo jet" on the morning of the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. They said that it was a white aircraft, with red stripes across it – which is what the Malaysia Airlines flights typically look like. ... "I've never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We've seen seaplanes, but I'm sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly," said an eyewitness. "It's not just me either, several other residents have reported seeing the exact same thing. Some people got out of their houses to see what was causing the tremendous noise too." http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062 http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062
- wikiburner 13y ago
  Yep, I was just about to post this one: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10704769/Malaysian-Airlines-MH370-live.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/1070...
- Shivetya 13y ago
  I was under the impression this is rule out because the timing is eight hours after it vanished
  - hkphooey 13y ago
    The last INMARSAT ping was at 8:11am, the plane lost contact around 1:19am, so it's possible. http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/16/satcom-acars-explained/ http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/16/satcom-acars-explained/ Note the comments in the above link, the authorities have only released the INMARSAT ARC corresponding to a single ping. They have not released the ARCs for all the pings which would indicate if the plane was flying West or not. It may be that authorities are already investigating the Maldives and possible follow-on destinations, but do not want to publicly alert the pilot/hijackers that they are on their trail, so in public the focus has been on the northern corridor and Kazakhstan.
- superuser2 13y ago
  Why didn't they come forward before? Seems a little odd that they waited until after other evidence pointed to an island landing to claim they saw the plane.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Why would they think it was related? They're about 2,000 miles away from where the plane was originally thought to have crashed, and saw it hours after it supposedly crashed. Imagine a plane goes missing in Hawaii and hours later you see an unusual plane over San Francisco. The news is talking about how the plane disappeared over Hawaii and crashed into the ocean around there and lots of planes and ships are combing the waters around Hawaii... are you really going to connect your unusual sighting with those events happening half an ocean away?
martinjones 13y ago
This does sounds like a solid lead - maybe the most interesting news in the last few days.
- RobotCaleb 13y ago
  Breaking news. Most pilots with flight simulators have airports loaded into them that fall within regions in which they might fly.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    I'm actually surprised that most simulators don't have many if not all major runways (1000+ meters) loaded on them.
    - pubman 13y ago
      There are essentially two simulators that the majority of pilots use. Microsoft FSX and Xplane. They both have pretty much all of the airports in the world installed by default. The extras you install are the actual scenery, but the airports are there without any manual installation.
    - FD3SA 13y ago
      Sadly, sim software has been getting less and less user friendly as it becomes more of a niche product. Flight sims used to be a major gaming category in the early years of computers, but now with the gaming market having become so ruthlessly competitive, sim developers have fewer casual customers. Nowadays, most sim enthusiasts are semi-pro pilots and aerospace engineers. The biggest draw of sims is being able to fly aircraft that you normally couldn't, like the A-10 which is masterfully simulated down to its tiniest details by DCS in DCS Warthog.
  - fname 13y ago
    I didn't see anything in the news... Was KUL-PEK a normal route for this pilot? Makes a lot of sense to have and practice on runways in the area you take off or land into the most.
kjs3 13y ago
Pilot who flies in the area of the Indian Ocean has Indian Ocean airports on his practice setup. Obviously, a smoking gun. Also good that the defense minister denied the plane landed at Diego Garcia, because who in the world would notice it sitting there for a week? What's Malay for "Keystone Kops".
- fleitz 13y ago
  Royal Malaysia Police
- hkphooey 13y ago
  Maybe there's something lost in translation but I guess the story was leaked to journalists because the runways were specially designated i.e. bookmarked or set-up for regular practice with waypoints similar to what investigators have found. I'm not a pilot, but I imagine if I were, I would want to try landing at airports I normally wouldn't. So in the simulator I would probably pick the world's toughest runways, the most scenic ones, runways on the other side of the world... The Malaysians are being criticized but I don't think many countries would do that much better given the task in hand. Sure, the public relations and messaging should be better, but I'm sure there's a lot of stuff going on that we don't know about.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    I don't believe that idea that other countries wouldn't do better. They had the military radar data the night the plane went missing, indicating that the plane did not in fact crash near where the transponder shut down, but flew west for over an hour before disappearing off the radar in that direction. Despite having this information available, they either ignored it or didn't think to ask for it or something, and as a result they wasted massive amounts of time and effort (theirs and that of other countries) searching the wrong ocean. For a week. That military radar data is probably the most important information in the investigation that wasn't immediately known. Yet it didn't actually come to light until days later, and then when it did their immediate reaction was to deny that it was true! It took another couple of days before they finally settled down and admitted, yes, we tracked this plane flying completely out of the search area and far away from where we've been telling everyone it is. And we knew this for a couple of days, but we let everybody continue searching the wrong place anyway. In fact, we'll still let them keep searching for a couple more days before we refocus. There is some serious WTF going on. I hope there is some massive coverup or conspiracy going on, because they're verging on criminally incompetent otherwise.
oxryly1 13y ago
If a Malaysian pilot with a simulator DIDN'T have these airports readily available in his simulator I'd be kinda shocked.
seanalltogether 13y ago
And how many other practice runways were also on the simulator? Zero...one hundred?
andyjohnson0 13y ago
Is it common for professional pilots to have flight simulators at home? Edit: added "professional"
- fleitz 13y ago
  Is it common for developers to have compilers at home?
  - lvs 13y ago
    Is it common for surgeons to have scalpels at home?
    - fragmede 13y ago
      Unfortunately I'm not finding anything via Google to back me up, but in my experience, yes, it is. http://www.amazon.com/Scalpel-Blades-10-Box-100/dp/B0008FUQ2E http://www.amazon.com/Scalpel-Blades-10-Box-100/dp/B0008FUQ2... It's not like it's at all expensive either.
    - AndrewGreen 13y ago
      A friend of mine who's an ER doctor removed a mole for me at his kitchen table with kit he had in the house.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - Turing_Machine 13y ago
      Sure. At one time every doctor had a medical bag with scalpels, sutures, basic medications, etc. that they carried with them everywhere they went. I think it's still pretty common (though maybe not as common as it was in the days when doctors made house calls).
    - icambron 13y ago
      She's an internist, not a surgeon, but my wife has no shortage of simple medical equipment in our home.
fleitz 13y ago
In other news inspecting Michael Schumacher's copy of GT5 indicates he practiced on Formula 1 tracks.
- kjs3 13y ago
  It's much worse...NASCAR. Clearly, he's involved somehow.
chrisBob 13y ago
If this was deliberate, and that pilot is the one behind it, then he probably put some thought into what was saved on his home flight simulator also. Anyone who vanishes a 777 for over a week probably put a little effort into details like that.
- hkphooey 13y ago
  Good point, so any bookmarked runways could be a complete red herring...
evanm 13y ago
This article is so misleading, starting with the title. "Cops find five Indian Ocean practice Runways..." seems to suggest these runways were used for practice by Shah. This article says nothing more than these were runway options (out of probably thousands) that were available for simulation. There is no useful information from this piece at all, and it is leading to completely unwarranted speculation, especially by folks who have no knowledge of flying and simulators.
- sentenza 13y ago
  It's not even like there is anyting suspicious about having a bunch of runways close to his regular routes on his simulator to practice on. I'd almost expect something like this from a pilot that takes his trade seriously. After all, where do you have to land in case of emergency, if not on some runway near your regular routes.
revelation 13y ago
The speculation around this seems rather pointless. Obviously, at this time, the plane has neither crashed into anything or magically converted water into fuel, nor has it landed anywhere it could fly off from again. So how about we find it first (stuck in some jungle as its guaranteed to be) and then let facts guide our wild speculations?

35 points by hkphooey 13y ago

beaner 13y ago

What if it stopped there to refuel and then took off again?

notahacker 13y ago
If you assume the conspiracy involves the Air Traffic Control and fuel handling services at Male Airport, plus any tourists or Maldivians in the two population centres a few hundred metres away, then the theory of them sneaking a massive jet in and out of Male airport without anybody noticing becomes a distinct possibility.
- beaner 13y ago
  Just thinking out loud I guess. Altneratively: it went to Diego Garcia, and the US military is in on it. No civilians or public air services required. It refueled and launched again from there. Don't necessarily believe these are likely, it's just interesting to think about.

hkphooey 13y ago

The five airports are located in the Maldives, Diego Garcia, India and Sri Lanka. News out today claims multiple eye-witnesses in the Maldives: "Residents of the remote Maldives island of Kuda Huvadhoo in Dhaal Atoll have reported seeing a "low flying jumbo jet" on the morning of the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. They said that it was a white aircraft, with red stripes across it – which is what the Malaysia Airlines flights typically look like. ... "I've never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We've seen seaplanes, but I'm sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly," said an eyewitness. "It's not just me either, several other residents have reported seeing the exact same thing. Some people got out of their houses to see what was causing the tremendous noise too." http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062 http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062

wikiburner 13y ago
Yep, I was just about to post this one: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10704769/Malaysian-Airlines-MH370-live.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/1070...
Shivetya 13y ago
I was under the impression this is rule out because the timing is eight hours after it vanished
- hkphooey 13y ago
  The last INMARSAT ping was at 8:11am, the plane lost contact around 1:19am, so it's possible. http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/16/satcom-acars-explained/ http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/16/satcom-acars-explained/ Note the comments in the above link, the authorities have only released the INMARSAT ARC corresponding to a single ping. They have not released the ARCs for all the pings which would indicate if the plane was flying West or not. It may be that authorities are already investigating the Maldives and possible follow-on destinations, but do not want to publicly alert the pilot/hijackers that they are on their trail, so in public the focus has been on the northern corridor and Kazakhstan.
superuser2 13y ago
Why didn't they come forward before? Seems a little odd that they waited until after other evidence pointed to an island landing to claim they saw the plane.
- mikeash 13y ago
  Why would they think it was related? They're about 2,000 miles away from where the plane was originally thought to have crashed, and saw it hours after it supposedly crashed. Imagine a plane goes missing in Hawaii and hours later you see an unusual plane over San Francisco. The news is talking about how the plane disappeared over Hawaii and crashed into the ocean around there and lots of planes and ships are combing the waters around Hawaii... are you really going to connect your unusual sighting with those events happening half an ocean away?

martinjones 13y ago

This does sounds like a solid lead - maybe the most interesting news in the last few days.

RobotCaleb 13y ago
Breaking news. Most pilots with flight simulators have airports loaded into them that fall within regions in which they might fly.
- malandrew 13y ago
  I'm actually surprised that most simulators don't have many if not all major runways (1000+ meters) loaded on them.
  - pubman 13y ago
    There are essentially two simulators that the majority of pilots use. Microsoft FSX and Xplane. They both have pretty much all of the airports in the world installed by default. The extras you install are the actual scenery, but the airports are there without any manual installation.
  - FD3SA 13y ago
    Sadly, sim software has been getting less and less user friendly as it becomes more of a niche product. Flight sims used to be a major gaming category in the early years of computers, but now with the gaming market having become so ruthlessly competitive, sim developers have fewer casual customers. Nowadays, most sim enthusiasts are semi-pro pilots and aerospace engineers. The biggest draw of sims is being able to fly aircraft that you normally couldn't, like the A-10 which is masterfully simulated down to its tiniest details by DCS in DCS Warthog.
- fname 13y ago
  I didn't see anything in the news... Was KUL-PEK a normal route for this pilot? Makes a lot of sense to have and practice on runways in the area you take off or land into the most.

kjs3 13y ago

Pilot who flies in the area of the Indian Ocean has Indian Ocean airports on his practice setup. Obviously, a smoking gun. Also good that the defense minister denied the plane landed at Diego Garcia, because who in the world would notice it sitting there for a week? What's Malay for "Keystone Kops".

fleitz 13y ago
Royal Malaysia Police
hkphooey 13y ago
Maybe there's something lost in translation but I guess the story was leaked to journalists because the runways were specially designated i.e. bookmarked or set-up for regular practice with waypoints similar to what investigators have found. I'm not a pilot, but I imagine if I were, I would want to try landing at airports I normally wouldn't. So in the simulator I would probably pick the world's toughest runways, the most scenic ones, runways on the other side of the world... The Malaysians are being criticized but I don't think many countries would do that much better given the task in hand. Sure, the public relations and messaging should be better, but I'm sure there's a lot of stuff going on that we don't know about.
- mikeash 13y ago
  I don't believe that idea that other countries wouldn't do better. They had the military radar data the night the plane went missing, indicating that the plane did not in fact crash near where the transponder shut down, but flew west for over an hour before disappearing off the radar in that direction. Despite having this information available, they either ignored it or didn't think to ask for it or something, and as a result they wasted massive amounts of time and effort (theirs and that of other countries) searching the wrong ocean. For a week. That military radar data is probably the most important information in the investigation that wasn't immediately known. Yet it didn't actually come to light until days later, and then when it did their immediate reaction was to deny that it was true! It took another couple of days before they finally settled down and admitted, yes, we tracked this plane flying completely out of the search area and far away from where we've been telling everyone it is. And we knew this for a couple of days, but we let everybody continue searching the wrong place anyway. In fact, we'll still let them keep searching for a couple more days before we refocus. There is some serious WTF going on. I hope there is some massive coverup or conspiracy going on, because they're verging on criminally incompetent otherwise.

oxryly1 13y ago

If a Malaysian pilot with a simulator DIDN'T have these airports readily available in his simulator I'd be kinda shocked.

seanalltogether 13y ago

And how many other practice runways were also on the simulator? Zero...one hundred?

andyjohnson0 13y ago

Is it common for professional pilots to have flight simulators at home? Edit: added "professional"

fleitz 13y ago
Is it common for developers to have compilers at home?
- lvs 13y ago
  Is it common for surgeons to have scalpels at home?
  - fragmede 13y ago
    Unfortunately I'm not finding anything via Google to back me up, but in my experience, yes, it is. http://www.amazon.com/Scalpel-Blades-10-Box-100/dp/B0008FUQ2E http://www.amazon.com/Scalpel-Blades-10-Box-100/dp/B0008FUQ2... It's not like it's at all expensive either.
  - AndrewGreen 13y ago
    A friend of mine who's an ER doctor removed a mole for me at his kitchen table with kit he had in the house.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - Turing_Machine 13y ago
    Sure. At one time every doctor had a medical bag with scalpels, sutures, basic medications, etc. that they carried with them everywhere they went. I think it's still pretty common (though maybe not as common as it was in the days when doctors made house calls).
  - icambron 13y ago
    She's an internist, not a surgeon, but my wife has no shortage of simple medical equipment in our home.

fleitz 13y ago

In other news inspecting Michael Schumacher's copy of GT5 indicates he practiced on Formula 1 tracks.

kjs3 13y ago
It's much worse...NASCAR. Clearly, he's involved somehow.

chrisBob 13y ago

If this was deliberate, and that pilot is the one behind it, then he probably put some thought into what was saved on his home flight simulator also. Anyone who vanishes a 777 for over a week probably put a little effort into details like that.

hkphooey 13y ago
Good point, so any bookmarked runways could be a complete red herring...

evanm 13y ago

This article is so misleading, starting with the title. "Cops find five Indian Ocean practice Runways..." seems to suggest these runways were used for practice by Shah. This article says nothing more than these were runway options (out of probably thousands) that were available for simulation. There is no useful information from this piece at all, and it is leading to completely unwarranted speculation, especially by folks who have no knowledge of flying and simulators.

sentenza 13y ago
It's not even like there is anyting suspicious about having a bunch of runways close to his regular routes on his simulator to practice on. I'd almost expect something like this from a pilot that takes his trade seriously. After all, where do you have to land in case of emergency, if not on some runway near your regular routes.

revelation 13y ago

The speculation around this seems rather pointless. Obviously, at this time, the plane has neither crashed into anything or magically converted water into fuel, nor has it landed anywhere it could fly off from again. So how about we find it first (stuck in some jungle as its guaranteed to be) and then let facts guide our wild speculations?