From the day the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared many theories such as hijacking, disintegration in midair, missile attack, and so on, are being elucidated by pundits and amateurs for the possible disappearance of the flight that took off on Saturday, March 8, 2014, at 00:41 MST from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport with 239 people, including 12 crew members.
Since the international search for the missing aircraft has not yielded any result and the hope of finding it is waning as the days dawn on, implausible and whimsical theories are now circulating in regular and online social media.
A meteor strike?
Some have suggested that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 could have been struck by a powerful meteor that shattered it to smithereens, and the bits might have fallen into the sea.
Interception by aliens?
On the ForbiddenKnowledgeTV.com, a conspiracy theory site, Alexandra Bruce has interpreted the unusual data on Flightradar24.com on the date of the disappearance. He suggests that a UFO might have intercepted the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
The radar playback from Flightradar24.com website. Click image to view video.
Seeing the radar playback of the moments leading up to the plane’s disappearance, one may forgive Malaysia Airlines for not being more forward, in this case – because the radar playback is not only baffling, it shows two distinct anomalies, as pointed out by Intrepid citizen-reporter and YouTube popstar, DAHBOO7.
The radar playbackdepicts dozens of planes in flight over the region at the time. The first peculiarity is seen in the lower left of the screen. A round object appears in the vicinity of Flight 370 (and amid several others), which the radar does not automatically “read” as airplane. Suddenly, this round object take the form of a “plane” on the radar screen and accelerates at a rate of speed that must be at least five times the speed of the surrounding planes, heading eastward, over the South China Sea – and just as suddenly the object stops and appears to hover in place.
During this same time, there is some evidence that shortly after crossing the Malaysian Peninsula, Flight 370 was in trouble. The radar playback shows that the plane took three sharp turns: right, left, right at an altitude of 35,000 feet and at a speed of 473 knots – just before the radar readings instantly go from 35,000 feet to 0, with the plane still traveling at that speed for a few moments more, at 0 feet altitude before it vanishes from the screen. As of this writing, this plane remains missing, even though the sea is relatively shallow in the area where the lane went missing.
As for the other object described here, it disappears as well. There have been no reports about this object – or plane, or what have you; whether it was a commercial airliner, like the many others in flight during the final moments preceding the disappearance of Flight 370 – but the object in question certainly didn’t behave like a commercial airliner.
Regardless of whether or not this mystery object had anything to do with the demise of of Flight 370 – what IS evident is that the radar readings shown in this clip captured signals from what for now, can only be termed a UFO.
Copywriters persuade people to buy or use a product by writing eye-catching, meaningful advertisements.
At times people can be ingenious and for fun alter a copywriter’s creation and play havoc with other people’s beliefs and trust.
I came across the following Malaysia Airlines advertisement posted on Facebook.
Boeing – Lose yourself on a journey. The fake ad.
This advertisement shocked me. At first I thought the copywriter who created this advertisement must be a modern-day prophet who must have had a premonition of the future.
I define “prophecy” as the process of communicating to others about events that are due to take place in the future. This knowledge about the future can be the outcome of communication received from a divine or a supernatural entity or arising from one’s own frustration or wishful thinking. The person who foretells the so-called future events is given the hallowed label “prophet” by those who believe him, or slapped with a profane label “jerk” by those who feel he is a nut who ought to be institutionalized.
As usual, I dived in to find whether such an ad was ever published by Malaysia Airlines.
This image purported to be an old Malaysia Airlines ad is a sick joke in bad taste. Posted on social networks, it has gone viral at a time when people are worried about the fate of the 239 people on board the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
No such ad was ever created or published by Malaysia Airlines. It is a gigantic hoax.
No such ad was ever created or published by Malaysia Airlines. It is a gigantic hoax. The plane pictured in the ad is not a Boeing 777. It is an Airbus A380.
In fact, I came across the following two advertisements published by Malaysia Airlines in 2012 using the image of Airbus A380.
Malaysia Airlines Original ad – 1
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Malaysia Airlines Original ad – 2
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Why do some people deliberately fabricate falsehood made to masquerade as truth such this? Why should some attempt to misinform fellow beings?
A hoax is obviously a form of vandalism. Misinformation misleads people making them commit judgmental errors with real consequences, including hurt feelings, public embarrassment, etc. Misinformation in some articles, like medical topics, could lead to health injury or even death. So, why don’t the perpetrators of hoaxes use their resources to create useful topics that could help people instead of deceiving them?
On Saturday, March 15, 2014, a week after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters:
“Based on new satellite information, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was disabled just before the aircraft reached the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft’s transponder was switched off.”
This statement implies the Aircraft has been hijacked. It has raised questions about the person or people with deep experience at the controls in the cockpit of the aircraft when it disappeared.
Now, the investigators have started scrutinizing the background of the crew and passengers on board the aircraft more fervently. They are trying to find whether anyone on board other than Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah (53) and First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid (27) had training in aircraft navigation and deliberately or under coercion diverted the plane from its scheduled route after communication was lost.
Security on cockpit doors has been reinforced on all passenger aircraft after the terrorist attacks of September 11 in New York. Hence, forced entry into the cockpit would not be possible and the pilots would have had enough time to send a warning signal to the ground air traffic controllers.
The aircraft’s transponder in the cockpit was switched off just before the plane passed from Malaysian to the Ho Chi Minh Area air traffic control space – the optimum moment, when the aircraft was not controlled by air traffic controllers in Malaysia or Vietnam. Later, authorities in Thailand and China informed their Malaysian counterparts that the aircraft had not entered their airspace.
Controls in the cockpit of a Boeing 777-200ER (Source: flyawaysimulation.com)
The Boeing 777-200ER is a large aircraft and relatively new. So, someone who has flown smaller passenger planes, or even smaller Boeings, could not have shut down the aircraft’s communications. The timing of turning off the transponder could be done only by someone who knew this aircraft well, knew the route, and knew how to avoid air traffic control without attracting attention. This certainly points to the involvement of the pilot, the first mate or one or more crew members, willing or unwilling.
On Thursday, March 13, 2014, a US official said during his brief on the search that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 sent signals to a satellite orbiting 22,250 miles over the middle of the Indian Ocean for four hours after the aircraft went missing. This indicates the missing aircraft was still flying for hundreds of miles or more after it was last contacted by ground controllers.
Satellite contact map released by Malaysian officials shows two red lines representing the possible locations from which Flight 370 sent its last hourly transmissions. (Credit Office of the Prime Minister of Malaysia)
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Satellite contact map by SERGIO PEÇANHA, ARCHIE TSE and TIM WALLACE (Source: Malaysian government)
The above two maps released by officials of the Malaysian government and posted in The New York Times show the signals from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 came from somewhere along one of the two arcs shows in red. The northern arc runs from the southern border of Kazakhstan in central Asia to northern Thailand and the southern arc runs from a location near Jakarta to the Indian Ocean, roughly 1,000 miles off the west coast of Australia.
The land area the northern arc passes through encompasses portentous arenas of insurgency and highly militarized zones from Kazakhstan in central Asia to northern Thailand. The beginning of the arc lies close to northern Iran. It then passes through Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, northern India, the Himalayas and Myanmar.
If Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had flown on that arc, it would have to pass through air defense networks in India and Pakistan, whose mutual long border is heavily militarized, as well as Afghanistan, where the United States and other NATO countries have operational air bases for more than a decade.
If hijacked, where did the airplane go? Did it land on firm terrain or crash into the deep Indian Ocean?
Theories such as hijacking, disintegration in midair, missile attack, and so on, are being expounded by pundits and amateurs for the plausible disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 that took off on Saturday, March 8, 2014, at 00:41 MST from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport with 239 people, including 12 crew members, on a scheduled six-hour flight to Beijing. About two hours later, the aircraft was last seen on Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar at 02:40 MST. After that the aircraft ceased all communications, and the transponder signal was lost.
Was the Aircraft Hijacked?
On Saturday, March 15, 2014, a week after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters:
“Based on new satellite information, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was disabled just before the aircraft reached the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft’s transponder was switched off.”
The Prime Minister further said:
“Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear: we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate from its original flight path.”
I have reproduced below the full text of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s statement on the investigation into the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, as provided by the Prime Minister’s office. I have used the two diagrams from the very informative article published in the The New York Times titled “Search for Malaysian Jet Becomes Criminal Inquiry” authored by Keith Bradsher and Chris Buckley.
Najib Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia. (Source: .abc.net.au)
Seven days ago Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared. We realize this is an excruciating time for the families of those on board. No words can describe the pain they must be going through. Our thoughts and our prayers are with them.
I have been appraised of the ongoing search operation round the clock. At the beginning of the operation, I ordered the search area to be broadened; I instructed the Malaysian authorities to share all relevant information freely and transparently with the wider investigation team; and I requested that our friends and allies join the operation. As of today, 14 countries, 43 ships and 58 aircraft are involved in the search. I wish to thank all the governments for their help at such a crucial time.
Since day one, the Malaysian authorities have worked hand-in-hand with our international partners – including neighboring countries, the aviation authorities and a multinational search force – many of whom have been here on the ground since Sunday.
We have shared information in real time with authorities who have the necessary experience to interpret the data. We have been working nonstop to assist the investigation. And we have put our national security second to the search for the missing plane.
It is widely understood that this has been a situation without precedent.
We have conducted search operations over land, in the South China Sea, the Straits of Malacca, the Andaman Sea and the Indian Ocean. At every stage, we acted on the basis of verified information, and we followed every credible lead. Sometimes these leads have led nowhere.
There has been intense speculation. We understand the desperate need for information on behalf of the families and those watching around the world. But we have a responsibility to the investigation and the families to only release information that has been corroborated. And our primary motivation has always been to find the plane.
In the first phase of the search operation, we searched near MH370’s last known position, in the South China Sea. At the same time, it was brought to our attention by the Royal Malaysian Air Force that, based on their primary radar, an aircraft – the identity of which could not be confirmed – made a turn back. The primary radar data showed the aircraft proceeding on a flight path which took it to an area north of the Straits of Malacca.
Given this credible data, which was subsequently corroborated with the relevant international authorities, we expanded the area of search to include the Straits of Malacca and, later, to the Andaman Sea.
Early this morning I was briefed by the investigation team – which includes the F.A.A., N.T.S.B., the A.A.I.B., the Malaysian authorities and the acting minister of transport – on new information that sheds further light on what happened to MH370.
Based on new satellite information, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) was disabled just before the aircraft reached the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Shortly afterwards, near the border between Malaysian and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft’s transponder was switched off.
The diagram published by New York Times citing Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation (search areas); flightradar24.com (dotted flight path); Malaysia Airlines as sources.
From this point onwards, the Royal Malaysian Air Force primary radar showed that an aircraft which was believed – but not confirmed – to be MH370 did indeed turn back. It then flew in a westerly direction back over Peninsular Malaysia before turning northwest. Up until the point at which it left military primary radar coverage, these movements are consistent with deliberate action by someone on the plane.
Today, based on raw satellite data that was obtained from the satellite data service provider, we can confirm that the aircraft shown in the primary radar data was flight MH370. After much forensic work and deliberation, the F.A.A., N.T.S.B., A.A.I.B. and the Malaysian authorities, working separately on the same data, concur.
According to the new data, the last confirmed communication between the plane and the satellite was at 8:11 a.m. Malaysian time on Saturday 8th March. The investigations team is making further calculations which will indicate how far the aircraft may have flown after this last point of contact. This will help us to refine the search.
Due to the type of satellite data, we are unable to confirm the precise location of the plane when it last made contact with the satellite.
This map released by Malaysian officials shows two red lines representing the possible locations from which Flight 370 sent its last hourly transmission to a satellite at 8:11 a.m. on March 8, more than seven hours after it took off from Kuala Lumpur’s airport, and when the plane would most likely have been running low on fuel. Credit Office of the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
However, based on this new data, the aviation authorities of Malaysia and their international counterparts have determined that the plane’s last communication with the satellite was in one of two possible corridors: a northern corridor stretching approximately from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to northern Thailand, or a southern corridor stretching approximately from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean. The investigation team is working to further refine the information.
In view of this latest development the Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board. Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, I wish to be very clear: we are still investigating all possibilities as to what caused MH370 to deviate from its original flight path.
This new satellite information has a significant impact on the nature and scope of the search operation. We are ending our operations in the South China Sea and reassessing the redeployment of our assets. We are working with the relevant countries to request all information relevant to the search, including radar data.
As the two new corridors involve many countries, the relevant foreign embassies have been invited to a briefing on the new information today by the Malaysian Foreign Ministry and the technical experts. I have also instructed the Foreign Ministry to provide a full briefing to foreign governments which had passengers on the plane. This morning, Malaysia Airlines has been informing the families of the passengers and crew of these new developments.
Clearly, the search for MH370 has entered a new phase. Over the last seven days, we have followed every lead and looked into every possibility. For the families and friends of those involved, we hope this new information brings us one step closer to finding the plane.
On Saturday, March 8, 2014, the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) took off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 00:41 MST, with 239 people, including 12 crew members, on a scheduled six-hour flight to Beijing. About two hours later, the aircraft was last seen on Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar at 02:40 MST. After that the aircraft ceased all communications, and the transponder signal was lost just before tracking was passed off to the Ho Chi Minh Area Control Center in Vietnam. Airline authorities in Thailand and China informed their Malaysian counterparts that the aircraft had not entered their airspace.
From then on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 has been listed as missing. No one knows about its whereabouts. It has just vanished into thin air.
Theories such as hijacking, disintegration in midair, missile attack, and so on, are being expounded by pundits and amateurs for the plausible disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
On Thursday, March 13, 2014, a US official said during his brief on the search that Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 sent signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went missing. This was an indication that the missing aircraft was still flying for hundreds of miles or more after it was last contacted by ground controllers.
The Boeing Company offers a satellite service that can receive a data from an aircraft during its flight about its functioning and relay the information to the plane’s home base to help provide information before it lands on whether maintenance work or repairs are needed. Though Malaysia Airlines did not subscribe to that service, their aircraft still had the capability to connect with the satellite and was automatically sending pings to it to establish contact.
“It’s like when your cellphone is off, but it still sends out a little ‘I am here’ message to the cellphone network,” the official said. “That’s how sometimes they can triangulate your position even though you’re not calling because the phone every so often sends out a little bleep. That’s sort of what this thing was doing.”
However, there was no comment from Boeing.
Messages involving a different, more rudimentary data service also were received from the airliner for a short time after the plane’s transponder – a device used to identify the plane to radar – went silent, the official said.
A transponder is a radio transmitting device in the cockpit used to identify the aircraft to the ground radar with a four-digit identifying code known as the squawk code entered by the pilot for each flight. The transponder also helps air traffic controllers on the ground to ascertain the aircraft’s position, its altitude, speed, and direction.
There are codes for different situations: 7500 for a hijacking, 7600 for communications failure, etc.
A switch on the transponder can be moved to “ON” or “SBY” (standby) or “ALT” (altitude). Manually one can also pull the circuit breaker to turn off a transponder.
A transponder would be turned off during a normal flight if another aircraft gets closer while approaching an airport. The Air traffic controllers may then ask the pilots to switch off the transponders or to move the switch to SBY. At times the pilot might turn off the transponder if it sends faulty information. Even if the transponder is switched off the aircraft will still be visible on primary radar unless it gets below the radar’s visible range.
If the plane had disintegrated during flight or had suffered some other catastrophic failure, after the aircraft was last seen on Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar at 02:40, all signals – the pings to the satellite, the data messages and the transponder – would have stopped at the same time.
If the plane did not disintegrate during the flight and the transponders on the aircraft were disabled manually, the ground radar can still track the location of the aircraft using “passive radar systems” also known as “passive coherent location” and “passive covert radar.”
Passive radar systems
Conventional radar systems comprise an assembly of transmitter and receiver, sharing a common antenna to transmit and receive signals. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio waves or microwaves that bounce off any object in their path. The object echoes a tiny part of the wave’s energy to a dish or antenna that is usually located at the same site as the transmitter. The time taken for the pulse to travel to the object and back allows the distance of the object to be determined.
In a passive radar system, there is no dedicated transmitter. Instead, the receiver uses third-party transmitters in the environment, and measures the time difference of arrival between the signal coming directly from the transmitter and the signal arriving via reflection from the object. This allows the bistatic range of the object to be determined.
The term “bistatic range” refers to the basic measurement of distance calculated by a radar or sonar system with separated transmitter and receiver. The receiver measures separately the time for the arrival of the signal directly from the transmitter and the time for the arrival of the reflection from the target, and then measures the time difference between the two. This data defines an ellipse of constant bistatic range, called an iso-range contour, on which the target lies, with foci centred on the transmitter and receiver.
Illustration of bistatic range by Paul Howland (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
If the target is at range Rrxfrom the receiver and range Rtxfrom the transmitter, and the receiver and transmitter are a distance L apart, then the bistatic range is Rrx+Rtx–L. Motion of the target causes a rate of change of bistatic range, which results in bistatic Doppler shift.
Malaysia Airlines MH370 change of course (Source: fox6now.com)
On Wednesday, March 12, 2014, the Malaysian military acknowledged that it had recorded radar signals from the location where the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was last contacted by ground controllers, hypothetically indicating the aircraft might have changed its path from its northeastward course toward Beijing towards the west.
The Military radar detected an unidentified aircraft at several points, apparently headed west across the Malaysian peninsula and out into the Indian Ocean. The last detected point was hundreds of miles to the west of where search and rescue efforts were initially focused.
On Saturday when the aircraft went missing, the military took no immediate action to investigate the unidentified blips, whose path appeared to take the aircraft near the heavily populated island of Penang.
A senior US official told CNN that Malaysian authorities believe they have several “pings” from the airliner’s Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), transmitted to the satellites in the four to five hours after the last transponder signal, suggesting the plane flew to the Indian Ocean.
The Military officials then realized the significance of blips on their radar.
If Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crashed into the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean with depths of more than 23,000 feet (7,000 meters), the task faced by searchers would be indomitable like finding a needle in a haystack.
India joined the multi-national search operations and has stepped up its search deploying three aircraft and three ships in the region around Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
For the past six days the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) has not yielded any clue to its whereabouts and remains a puzzle. The pilot did not send any distress signal and his last transmitted message was a pleasantry to Malaysian air traffic controllers, “All right, good night” that did not give any indication that anything was wrong on board.
Location last seen on radar screens.
So far, there have been only wild-goose chase and fruitless leads in the search for Flight MH370. However, the search now continues across a total area of around 35,800 sq. miles (92,600 sq. km) on many fronts – South China Sea, Gulf of Thailand, Strait of Malacca, and even Andman Sea. India joined the multi-national search operations and has stepped up its search deploying three aircraft and three ships in the region around Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
On the night of March 12, 2014, China’s State Administration for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) published three satellite images of what appear to be three floating objects in the sea. The three objects are 13m × 18m, 14m × 19m, and 24m × 22m respectively. The missing Boeing 777-200ER jet aircraft had a wingspan of 60.9 meters and a length of 63.7 meters. These images were captured by a Chinese satellite on the day after the disappearance of the aircraft. These satellite images have not been verified for their authenticity.
An American military official said that if the Chinese satellite had seen the objects, then U.S. satellites too would have seen them, but did not.
The website news.com.au has quoted Tom Haueter, former aviation director of the US National Transportation Safety Board:
“Any aircraft structure that size would sink. It wouldn’t float like this… I don’t believe it’s the plane. We don’t have enough data to say what happened.”
Location of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 last seen on radar screen and where the Chinese Satellite found three floating objects in the sea.
SASTIND gave coordinates of 6.7°N 105.63E which would place it in the sea about 143 miles (230 km) from where the aircraft was last seen on Malaysian Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar at 6.92°N 103.58°E before it disappeared. This was immediately considered the first major lead in the search for the missing aircraft. However, when Malaysian and Vietnamese aviation authorities flew over the area where the images showed the debris they did not find any trace of the missing aircraft.
Bob Woodruff, an ABC News correspondent, tweeted with a link to an image of an alleged email sent by Michael Jerome McKay, an oil rig worker working off the south coast of Vietnam to his employer stating he saw the crash:
Oil rig worker claims in employer confirmed letter-he saw the plane go down. Vietnamese say they found nothing @ABCpic.twitter.com/k8y02se9aZ
— Bob Woodruff (@BobWoodruff) March 12, 2014
Image of email from Mike McKay, an oil rig worker, obtained by ABC’s Bob Woodruff (Source: globalsnews.ca)
Mike McKay —–@—– To: —–@—–
Gentlemen,
I believe I saw the Malaysian Airlines plane come down. The timing is right. I tried to contact the Malaysian and Vietnam officials several days ago. But I do not know if the message has been received.
I am on the oil-rig “Songa Mercur” off Vung Tau
The surface location of the observation is: Lat 08°22’30.23″ N Long. 108°47’22.26″ E
I observed (the plane?) burning at high altitude and on a compass bearing of 265° to 275° from our surface location. It Is very difficult to Judge the distance but I’d say 50-70 km along the compass bearing 260° – 275°.
While I observed the burning (plane) it appeared to be in ONE piece.
The surface sea current at our location is. 2.0-2.3 knots in a direction of 225°-230°. The wind direction has been NE-ENE averaging 15-20 knots.
From when I first saw the burning (plane) until the flames went out (still at high altitude) was 10-15 seconds. There was no lateral movement, so it was either coming toward our location, stationary (falling) or going away from our location.
The general position of the observation was perpendicular / south-west of the normal flight paths (we see the Con-trails every day) and at a lower altitude than the normal flight paths. Or on the compass bearing 265°-275° intersecting the normal flight paths and at normal altitude but further away.
Good luck
Michael Jerome McKay
Location of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 last seen on radar screen and alleged eye witness location of crash.
The distance from where the aircraft was last seen on Malaysian Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar at 6.92°N 103.58°E before it disappeared on Saturday, March 8, 2014, and the coordinate 08°22’30.23″N 108°47’22.26″E as location of the so-called crash given by the oil rig worker, works out to 370 miles (600 km).
In a separate tweet, Woodruff warned that the oil rig worker’s claims are not confirmed and in fact could be a hoax:
The letter from oil rig worker is filled w/details yet could be a hoax. Vietnamese officials are investigating @ABC pic.twitter.com/6MSuNHZedU
— Bob Woodruff (@BobWoodruff) March 12, 2014
Malaysian authorities have acknowledged that they are not sure of the direction the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 was following when it disappeared from their ATC radar screens. The Associated Press reported:
Indonesian air force Col. Umar Fathur said the country had received official information from Malaysian authorities that the plane was above the South China Sea, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Kota Bharu, Malaysia, when it turned back toward the strait and then disappeared. That would place its last confirmed position closer to Malaysia than has previously been publicly disclosed.
Confusion over whether the plane had been spotted flying west has prompted speculation that different arms of the government have different opinions about where the plane is most likely to be, or even that authorities are holding back information.
Vietnam has scaled down its efforts to locate the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 because it waited for Malaysia to clarify the new direction the multi-national search group should follow from now onwards.
Vietnam’s deputy minister of transport Pham Quy Tieu said:
“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.”
Aviation authorities in Malaysia said that so far no details on radar data revealed a possible “turn-back” of the aircraft. However, Malaysia’s air force reiterated on Wednesday that it had not ruled out the possibility of the Boeing 777 changing courses.
A statement issued by Air Force chief General Rodzali Daud said:
“For the time being, it would not be appropriate… to issue any official conclusions as to the aircraft’s flight path until a high amount of certainty and verification is achieved.”
We have now entered the fourth day of searching for the Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) that disappeared from the radar screens of Malaysia Airlines’ Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar systems in the early hours of Saturday, March 8, 2014.
At 07:24 MST on Saturday, March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines issued a statement to the media confirming that their Flight 370 (MH370) that took off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport the same day at 00:41 MST on a scheduled six-hour flight to Beijing, China, went missing and was last seen on their ATC radars at 02:40 MST. It had 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. (See my article: Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370)
Many questions remain unanswered about the missing passenger jet aircraft.
Flight of MH370 (Source: mirror.co.uk)
At the time of disappearance from the radar screens Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 would have been travelling at an altitude of 35,000 feet (10,660 meters). The pilots did not send any distress signal. They did not convey any indications of bad weather or technical problems. The plane was carrying enough fuel for an extra 7.5 hours of flight.
Nine countries are now involved in the search effort, covering thousands of square miles of sea. According to Malaysian Defence Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, the current multinational search for the missing plane now includes roughly 43 ships and 39 aircraft.
Boeing 777-200ER Malaysia AL (MAS) 9M-MRO, the missing aircraft (Source: Laurent ERRERA from L’Union, France)
On Saturday, March 8, 2014, a Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (MH370) took off from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, at 00:21 MST (March 7, 16:21 UTC) with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board. It was a scheduled six-hour flight to Beijing Capital International Airport, Beijing, China. This international passenger flight operated by a Boeing 777-200ER was also designated under a codeshare agreement as China Southern Airlines Flight 748 (CZ748).
Fliight path of Malaysia Airlines MH370 (Source – Sailsbystars)
At 07:24 MST, Malaysia Airlines issued a media statement confirming that the aircraft was last seen on Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar at 02:40 MST (March 7, 18:40 UTC) at 6°55′15″N 103°34′43″E, approximately 100 miles (180 km) North of Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. After that the aircraft ceased all communications, and the transponder signal was lost just before it was to be passed off to the Ho Chi Minh Area Control Center in Vietnam. Authorities in Thailand and China informed their Malaysian counterparts that the aircraft had not entered their airspace.
According to the military radar of Malaysia’s air force, the aircraft might have changed course and turned back toward Kuala Lumpur before disappearing and officials don’t know why the plane would have turned around. The pilots didn’t tell ATC that they were doing so.
Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, pilot of the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. (Source: beforeitsnews.com)
Fariq Abdul Hamid, First officer of Flight MH370. (Source: beforeitsnews.com)
Malaysia Airlines said the 12 missing crew members on the flight were Malaysian. The plane’s pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a 53-year-old has been with the airline for over 30 years, and the plane’s first officer Fariq Hamid, a 27-year-old joined the airline in 2007.
Malaysia Airlines said the plane’s pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, a 53-year-old who has been with the airline for over 30 years, and the plane’s first officer Fariq Hamid, a 27-year-old who joined the airline in 2007 are Malaysians.
Of the 227 passengers on board, there were 154 from China and Taiwan, 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French, three from the U.S., and others from Indonesia, New Zealand, Canada, Ukraine, Russia, Austria, Italy, and the Netherlands. Among the passengers were a delegation of respected painters and calligraphers, employees of an American semiconductor company, a group of Buddhists returning from a religious gathering in Kuala Lumpur, a three-generation family, nine senior travelers and five children less than five years old.
What puzzles all is the fact that before vanishing from the radar screens the aircraft did not relay any distress signal, or convey any indications of bad weather or technical problems; and it was carrying a sufficient amount of fuel for an additional 7.5 hours of flight.
The Aviation Herald website reported that Subang Air Traffic Control lost radar and radio contact with the aircraft at 01:22 MST and officially advised Malaysia Airlines at 02:40 MST that the aircraft was missing. But, a Malaysia Airlines spokesperson said that the last conversation between the flight crew and air traffic control in Malaysia had been around 01:30 MST, and stated that the plane had not disappeared from air traffic control systems in Subang until 02:40 MST, which is long enough for the plane to have been flying across Vietnam.
The ATC requested another Malaysia Airlines flight, en route to Japan that took off about half an hour ahead of MH370, to contact the unresponsive aircraft. The captain established contact with the crew of MH370 just after 01:30 MST, but reported that he could not hear them clearly as they were ‘mumbling’.
A joint search-and-rescue effort by American, Australian, Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Malaysian, Singaporean, Thai, and Vietnamese authorities, is now under way mainly over the South China Sea.
On March 8, Vietnamese Navy reported that they located oil slicks in the Gulf of Thailand, about 50 nautical miles (93 km) south of Vietnam’s Thổ Chu Island.
On March 8, Vietnamese Navy reported that they located oil slicks in the Gulf of Thailand, about 50 nautical miles (93 km) south of Vietnam’s Thổ Chu Island. One oil slick, was between 6 and 12 miles (10 – 20 km) long. A Vietnamese Civil Aviation Department aircraft spotted two large oil slicks that authorities suspect might be from the MAS jetliner. The slicks, each between 6 and 9 miles (10 – 15 km) long and 500 meters apart, were spotted 140 nautical miles (260 km) south of the Thổ Chu Island off southern Vietnam.
On March 9, Vietnamese aircraft spotted what they suspected was one of the doors belonging to the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 off southern Vietnam. Since it was too dark to ascertain whether the object was part of the missing plane, they decided to investigate the site in the morning. However, on Monday, Vietnamese officials said that they had not been able to locate the object spotted on Sunday that was thought to be part of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane.
Officials are now investigating the possibility of a midair disintegration.
How did this aircraft with with 227 passengers and 12 crew members on board disappear without any trace? In the following video Aviation expert David Gleave explains how a plane can ‘vanish’ off radar and what clues investigators will be looking for in the search for the missing plane and the mystery deepens.
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This disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 without a trace reminds me of the Bermuda Triangle, The Devil’s Sea, and the vile vortices where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil’s Triangle, is an undefined region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, where a number of aircraft and ships are said to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
The Dragon’s Triangle, also known as the Formosa Triangle, and the “Pacific Bermuda Triangle”, is a region of the Pacific around Miyake Island, about 100 km south of Tokyo. The Japanese call it the Ma-no Umimeaning the Devil’s Sea. The Dragon’s Triangle, is one of 12 Vile Vortices, originally plotted by Ivan T. Sanderson. The size and area varies with the reports that originated from the 1950s. Various reports locate it 68 miles (110 km) from an unspecified part of Japan’s east coast, 300 miles (480 km) from the coast, and one report places it near Iwo Jima which is 650 nautical miles (750 miles; 1,200 km) south of mainland Tokyo.
Charles Berlitz, author of books on paranormal phenomena, states in his entertaining book The Dragon’s Triangle (1989) that in the peacetime years between 1952-54 Japan lost five military vessels with over 700 crew members. The Japanese government then sent a research vessel with over 100 scientists on board to study the Devil’s Sea, and that vessel too vanished. According to Berlitz, that sea region was officially declared a danger zone on Japanese maps.
However, in 1995, Larry Kusche published his book “The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved” in which he mentions that the Japanese research vessel that Berlitz mentioned was named Kaiyo Maru No 5. It had a crew of 31 aboard. While investigating the activity of an undersea volcano, Myōjin-shō, about 300 km south of the Devil’s Sea, it was destroyed by an eruption on September 24, 1952. He also stated that the “military vessels” mentioned by Berlitz were fishing vessels lost between April 1949 and October 1953. Some of them were lost outside the Devil’s Sea, far away from the Japanese mainland, between Miyake Island and Iwo Jima, 1200 km to the south. He also points out that hundreds of fishing boats were lost around Japan every year.
The Vile Vortices is a term referring to twelve geographic areas or twelve vertex points of a planetary grid that are alleged by Ivan Sanderson to have been the sites of mysterious disappearances. He identified them in 1972 in an article published in Saga magazine titled “The Twelve Devil’s Graveyards Around the World.”
Ten of Ivan Sanderson’s 12 vortices set at regular intervals around the earth. The North and South Pole account for the 11th and 12th vortices.
Sanderson asserts that twelve “vortices” are situated along particular lines of latitude. The best known of the so-called “vortices” is the Bermuda Triangle. Others include Algerian Megaliths to the south of Timbuktu, the Indus Valley in Pakistan, especially the city of Mohenjo Daro, Hamakulia Volcano in Hawaii, the “Devil’s Sea” near Japan and the South Atlantic Anomaly. Five of the vortices are on the same latitude to the north of the equator; five are on the same latitude to the south. The other two are the north and south poles.
Now, the location where the aircraft was last seen on Air Traffic Control (ATC) radar at 02:40 MST (March 7, 18:40 UTC) was at 6°55′15″N 103°34′43″E, approximately 100 miles (180 km) North of Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. This location is 2,632 nautical miles (3029 miles; 4874 km) from Tokyo (24°47’N 141°19’E), and 2415 nautical miles (2779 miles; 4472 km) from Iwo Jima (24°47’N 141°19’E) and is a bit far away from the Dragon’s Triangle and not near any of Ivan Sanderson’s vile vortices.
So, up to now, the mystery of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 (Flight MH370) continues.
Charles Berlitz, author of books on paranormal phenomena, states in his entertaining book The Dragon’s Triangle (1989) that in the peacetime years between 1952-54 Japan lost five military vessels with over 700 crew members. The Japanese government then sent a research vessel with over 100 scientists on board to study the Devil’s Sea, and that vessel too vanished. According to Berlitz, that sea region was officially declared a danger zone on Japanese maps.
Impressions 