MH370, flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, has gone missing.

LouZiffer wrote:

I wonder if it'd be possible to follow the contrail in an infrared satellite image feed, provided that such a satellite were in the right place to track the plane.

Not on those engines.

Are Malaysian chemtrails different from those in the West? You could follow the trail of the plane by looking at how quickly vinegar dissipates (indicating a sydico-combustion reaction queueing effect, of course) and then locate the trail in the cross-dialectic plane of travel. I mean, this is basic stuff. I'm sure the CIA has some submarine satellites looking up from the Indian Ocean for just this purpose; it's far more specific than radar AND it allows to track potentially harmful foreign chemtrails. If only they weren't distracted by yet another scandal!

Robear wrote:

Are Malaysian chemtrails different from those in the West? You could follow the trail of the plane by looking at how quickly vinegar dissipates (indicating a sydico-combustion reaction queueing effect, of course) and then locate the trail in the cross-dialectic plane of travel. I mean, this is basic stuff. I'm sure the CIA has some submarine satellites looking up from the Indian Ocean for just this purpose; it's far more specific than radar AND it allows to track potentially harmful foreign chemtrails. If only they weren't distracted by yet another scandal!

This is one of a few reasons why I find the existence of this mystery, well, mystifying. I've found one place online where someone has taken comparatively low quality satellite images, eliminated known contrails, and identified the remaining one that may be from this flight. I would think that there are others with access to vastly superior resources and data to work from than some bloke on the Internet.

LouZiffer wrote:
Robear wrote:

Are Malaysian chemtrails different from those in the West? You could follow the trail of the plane by looking at how quickly vinegar dissipates (indicating a sydico-combustion reaction queueing effect, of course) and then locate the trail in the cross-dialectic plane of travel. I mean, this is basic stuff. I'm sure the CIA has some submarine satellites looking up from the Indian Ocean for just this purpose; it's far more specific than radar AND it allows to track potentially harmful foreign chemtrails. If only they weren't distracted by yet another scandal!

This is one of a few reasons why I find the existence of this mystery, well, mystifying. I've found one place online where someone has taken comparatively low quality satellite images, eliminated known contrails, and identified the remaining one that may be from this flight. I would think that there are others with access to vastly superior resources and data to work from than some bloke on the Internet.

Yeah, but anyone can do that for contrails. Only the ones really seeking to discover the truth would be trying to track down MH370's chemtrails.

Indeed. I'm actually speaking of both condensation and chemical trails, and you're right to point that out.

Latest news: the last voice communication with the plane was after most of its automated communication systems were shut down, which tends to support the theory that at least one of the pilots was complicit.

Or that someone disabled them and took control, it doesn't absolutely have to be a pilot.

But it probably is.

Robear wrote:

Are Malaysian chemtrails different from those in the West? You could follow the trail of the plane by looking at how quickly vinegar dissipates (indicating a sydico-combustion reaction queueing effect, of course) and then locate the trail in the cross-dialectic plane of travel. I mean, this is basic stuff. I'm sure the CIA has some submarine satellites looking up from the Indian Ocean for just this purpose; it's far more specific than radar AND it allows to track potentially harmful foreign chemtrails. If only they weren't distracted by yet another scandal!

Possible, but that's not using IR. IR satellites can track aircraft in the air, but in general, only when they're afterburning, and even then, only on certain engines that have a large enough heat signature.

My first comment was specific to IR and contrails. The next was about any sort of satellite data, which Robear was referring to.

Did I need humor/sarcasm tags for my post? Really? Submarine satellites?

ABC News is reporting that the pilot was an outspoken member of the political opposition group whose leader was arrested on reinstated sodomy charges the morning of the flight. Also, his family had left him the day before. The working theory is that the erratic altitude changes might indicate that he fought the co-pilot for control of the plane, briefly.

LouZiffer I can't tell if you're just willing to go farther down the rabbit hole on this joke than Robear or me, but if so, I tip my hat to your dedication

The Guardian has an article headlined "Rupert Murdoch on MH370", about his predictable conspiracy theories (blah blah jihadis blah blah).

I think I'm a Very Bad Person, because my first thought on seeing the headline was "Don't get our hopes up..."

I have a feeling it's crashed in the ocean. Hijacking a plane full of passengers was always going to be a lot less straight forward after 9.11. Before then the average passenger, including me, would assume that your best chance of survival was to keep quiet and co-operate with the hope of being released at some stage. Now a plane full of passengers knows they may need to do something to take back the plane, even if it's risky.

Robear wrote:

Did I need humor/sarcasm tags for my post? Really? Submarine satellites?

ABC News is reporting that the pilot was an outspoken member of the political opposition group whose leader was arrested on reinstated sodomy charges the morning of the flight. Also, his family had left him the day before. The working theory is that the erratic altitude changes might indicate that he fought the co-pilot for control of the plane, briefly.

It sounds like he also had a flight simulator set up in his house. Hopefully there is something there that will help.

Robear wrote:

Did I need humor/sarcasm tags for my post? Really? Submarine satellites?

ABC News is reporting that the pilot was an outspoken member of the political opposition group whose leader was arrested on reinstated sodomy charges the morning of the flight. Also, his family had left him the day before. The working theory is that the erratic altitude changes might indicate that he fought the co-pilot for control of the plane, briefly.

I missed the submarine part; the rest of it's possible, although I don't have firsthand knowledge of any of it, which I do with tracking aircraft via IR.

The Onion just posted a link to the A.V. Club's article about Courtney Love's solution.

IMAGE(http://i.onionstatic.com/avclub/5035/41/original/640.jpg)

(You can't make these things up. I mean, I guess maybe you can, but this seems totally legit.)

Higgledy wrote:

It sounds like he also had a flight simulator set up in his house. Hopefully there is something there that will help.

My husband pointed that out too, but I feel, pardon the pun, that that doesn't fly. A lot of flight enthusiast have simulators in their home (with varying degrees of complexity), and I don't find that a flight simulator is all that suspicious. Right? I don't know, maybe I'm just naive. Or was the one found suspiciously sophisticated?

Eleima wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

It sounds like he also had a flight simulator set up in his house. Hopefully there is something there that will help.

My husband pointed that out too, but I feel, pardon the pun, that that doesn't fly. A lot of flight enthusiast have simulators in their home (with varying degrees of complexity), and I don't find that a flight simulator is all that suspicious. Right? I don't know, maybe I'm just naive. Or was the one found suspiciously sophisticated?

You can't have a flight simulator and get on an airplane! That's dangerous! It's like playing video games and owning a gun right? :p

Really, I don't think it matters that he had a flight simulator. Are we not suppose to do anything pertaining to our jobs while not at our jobs? Because, you know, I did my tests for re-certification at home last month... heck, I even play "simulators" (video games) that use part of my line of work as the "bad guy".

I think Higgledy meant something along the lines of "They may find save games of flights in progress, or notes, about what happened, if he was in on it."

Considering that inside help does not seem at all unlikely at this point it's not an unreasonable piece of speculation.

This showed up on my facebook feed today:

https://plus.google.com/106271056358...

If true, then I think that pilot can claim the mother of all bad days: your political party collapses, your wife leaves you, your plane catches fire and crashes into the ocean, and the entire world decides that you were probably a terrorist.

Mantid wrote:
Eleima wrote:
Higgledy wrote:

It sounds like he also had a flight simulator set up in his house. Hopefully there is something there that will help.

My husband pointed that out too, but I feel, pardon the pun, that that doesn't fly. A lot of flight enthusiast have simulators in their home (with varying degrees of complexity), and I don't find that a flight simulator is all that suspicious. Right? I don't know, maybe I'm just naive. Or was the one found suspiciously sophisticated?

You can't have a flight simulator and get on an airplane! That's dangerous! It's like playing video games and owning a gun right? :p

Really, I don't think it matters that he had a flight simulator. Are we not suppose to do anything pertaining to our jobs while not at our jobs? Because, you know, I did my tests for re-certification at home last month... heck, I even play "simulators" (video games) that use part of my line of work as the "bad guy". :?

I was pointing it out in conjunction with this:

Robear wrote:

ABC News is reporting that the pilot was an outspoken member of the political opposition group whose leader was arrested on reinstated sodomy charges the morning of the flight. Also, his family had left him the day before. The working theory is that the erratic altitude changes might indicate that he fought the co-pilot for control of the plane, briefly.

No a flight simulator in itself doesn't mean he was a 'bad guy' but if he was planning to take over the plane because of his strong opposition to the government there then he might have used the simulator to fly his intended route once he was in control. I was hoping, as Yonder said, that they might find some clues to the location of the plane or the direction it was heading in when it went down.

kazooka wrote:

This showed up on my facebook feed today:

https://plus.google.com/106271056358...

If true, then I think that pilot can claim the mother of all bad days: your political party collapses, your wife leaves you, your plane catches fire and crashes into the ocean, and the entire world decides that you were probably a terrorist.

Actually that isn't the guy who's wife left him or who was a member of the opposition party who's leader was locked up. It's this guy:

Captain Zaharie

He isn't necessarily a terrorist either but it's not unreasonable to investigate the possibility or to have a look at his flight simulator.

Kazooka's link is a bit strangely framed, but the explanation for what happened makes really excellent sense. The last known bearing for the plane was heading directly for a known-safe airport.

It seems much more reasonable to me than the ever-wilder theories about where the plane went.

So....planes crash and go missing all the time* (Note: hyperbole). Why is this one getting so much coverage? Is it because terrorism hasn't been ruled out?

Gotcha, gang! Yes it completely makes sense to look at his flight simulator but I'm not completely convinced they'll did anything. And considering what little I do know about the Malaysian government, being an outspoken member of the opposition makes him a good guy in my book. The wife leaving him and the rest, well yeah, I guess that could explain him snapping. But with his track record? Meh.

I like the theory linked by Kazooka a bit better at this juncture, but what do I know, this isn't my area of expertise.

Keithustus, let me put it this way: when is the last time you heard of a plane going dark with no trace whatsoever?? It's not that frequent, especially when you factor in the number of planes that fly each and every day.

I see, thanks. Looks like, since the mid-1980s, only about once every few years.

edit...and none with 100+ aboard since 1962! That explains the publicity.

Thanks for doing the legwork, I'm still on my phone so couldn't so the research as easily (even browsing the forums is becoming tedious).
The numbers are even more significant than I'd remembered! Wow, not a single 100+ since the 60s.

Eleima wrote:

Gotcha, gang! Yes it completely makes sense to look at his flight simulator but I'm not completely convinced they'll did anything. And considering what little I do know about the Malaysian government, being an outspoken member of the opposition makes him a good guy in my book. The wife leaving him and the rest, well yeah, I guess that could explain him snapping. But with his track record? Meh.

I feel like there is a strong possibility that he was responsible. Probably not in a premeditated way but snapping and doing something he wouldn't dream of doing on another day. Pilots have been known to hijack their own planes before and seemingly decent men seem to be capable of all kinds of things I wouldn't believe possible when their families leave them. It could all be circumstance and the cause could be unrelated. I'm no expert either.

I just hope they find the plane one way or another. It must be torture for the families not knowing for certain if they have lost family members or not.

Edit: It's been confirmed that the planes onboard tracking and communication systems were manually shut down.

From The Guardian:

The person in control of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 issued their last communication to air traffic control after the first set of aircraft communications was disabled, Malaysian authorities have confirmed, adding further weight to suspicion that the plane was hijacked.

The latest revelation suggests that the person who delivered the "All right, good night" message to Kuala Lumpur air traffic controllers just before the Boeing-777 disappeared from their radar at 1.22am and diverted from its scheduled flightpath to Beijing was also aware that the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (Acars) had been manually shut down.

Interesting map in this article : http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/18/wo...

Let me put on my Internet Detective hat : based on the assumption that the plane flew along established routes and at standard speed, wouldn't it be possible to estimate a few locations where the plane could have intersected the last satellite signal circle (sorted by likelihood)?