Quoting SimonDanger (Reply 186):

2. What's the deal with the pilot's family? What do they say about what the pilot's state-of-mind was in the days before the flight? Are they being blackmailed into silence?

nupogodi said:

"...The family isn't talking, as is their right..."

Wait, so you're saying "nothing to see here, move along" because it's their legal right to not assist in this investigation?!? Really?

Quoting SimonDanger (Reply 200): Quoting SimonDanger (Reply 186): 2. What's the deal with the pilot's family? What do they say about what the pilot's state-of-mind was in the days before the flight? Are they being blackmailed into silence? nupogodi said: "...The family isn't talking, as is their right..." Wait, so you're saying "nothing to see here, move along" because it's their legal right to not assist in this investigation?!? Really?

Sure it's their right to not talk. But that doesn't mean the pilots should not be investigated. Given the current circumstances, it would be irresponsible at best to not search their phone and email records, home, laptops, etc, within the limits of the law.

Quoting GiveMeABreak (Reply 199):

Why not steal a cargo plane? Why do it with passengers on board?

Quoting hivue (Reply 198): I wonder who they are.

Probably people like me or my fire crew on a fire - we know what goes on. What gets reported is often not the same.

For very large fires - that is a big problem - we report up - but it can be distorted easily by the time it gets to the press.

quote=thunderboltdrgn,reply=196]Quoting SimonDanger (Reply 186):

Lastly, don't a lot of smart phones (like the I-phone)
never actually shut off, since the battery cannot be removed? Doesn't Apple get its
own metadata from all its phones surreptitiously all the time? [/quote]

This was what I was referring to:

From Apr. 22, 2011 WSJ:
Apple Inc.'s iPhones and Google Inc.'s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal—intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data.

(I can't post the link but it's easily found.)

Quoting SimonDanger (Reply 200): Wait, so you're saying "nothing to see here, move along" because it's their legal right to not assist in this investigation?!? Really?

Uh. What would you like us to do, torture them? Yes, it is very much within their legal right to make whatever statements they want to make in private, or make no statements at all. What the hell is wrong with you? What alternate route are you suggesting? Seriously, I'd like to know.

Quoting fn1001 (Reply 192): Can someone explain why we have 2arcs, or corridors, from where the last ping could come? Why not from the area between the two arcs?

The coverage from another satellite in the constellation overlapped that area. That satellite did not receive any signal from MH370 at 08:11L so the area between the arcs was ruled out.

Quoting davidzill (Reply 197): Has Iran, Kazakstan, Somalia, and North Korea reported if they had detected the aircraft? There are several reasons they would steal an aircraft for, and they probably spent years on this, probing for huge lapses in airport security and where fraudulent passports passed through largely undetected. 777 is a wise choice because it can virtually fly to any destination un-refueled.

Iran, why would they need do that? They could just buy some old 777 through some second hand source if they wanted. Also Iran isn't that much of a rogue state, compared to Saudi Arabia they seem fairly moderate in many aspects.

Kazakhstan? Why on earth would they steal an aircraft? Just because the country's name ends with "stan" doesn't mean it's similar to Afghanistan. Kazakhstan is not a rogue/failed state, they aren't any more likely to commit stuff like this than anyone else.

Somalia is totally out of question, the plane wouldn't have had enough range. Also it doesn't have that many air strips capable to handle a 777, only ones that really could are located in places with plenty of people around. Rumours would spread. Also I highly doubt any Somali group would be advanced enough to commit an attack like this.

North Korea - That's the only country with a government messed up enough to commit something like this, in theory. However the plane was full of Chinese, without support from China North Korea would collapse rather quickly. They wouldn't risk their relations with China by hijacking an airliner full of Chinese.


If the aircraft turns out to be in one piece somewhere I'll become a vegetarian for a month. I'm fairly sure it's on bottom of the Indian Ocean. No fancy conspiracies.

Quoting virgin744 (Reply 202): Why not steal a cargo plane? Why do it with passengers on board?

Because that would not fit the facts we have - the missing plane is a passenger plane.

Since this is completely hypothetical at this time - we have to match the facts. While stealing a freighter may seem like it makes more sense from our perspective, we don't have any idea what the goal of the hijackers, if there were any hijackers, was.

You may be able to argue a freighter makes more sense, but in doing that you are imparting your goals on the unknown people.

How's that for a circular non-informative answer.... Maybe I should go into PR.

These are my personal opinions - not related to any work I do.

Has there really not been any opublic announcement of a cash reward for information leading to the MH370 ? If not, why not? And really IMHO, this type of reward is pretty much the only carrot one might have in general to crack open the cone of silence, given that someone "out there" may have seen something, heard something, or has second thoughts now about being (remotely even) killing/have to kill so many innocent people including babies?

It' s chilling to think a "mass murderer" might be out there who can strike again, I hope not, but rewards have been announced for far smaller things than methodically killing of an entire civilian passenger aircraft's pax and crew. Of course it could be all a mechanical failure at the extreme edge of probability, but then Boeing and indeed the aerospace industry will have to answer for it. In absence of that, the jaded lone wolf scenario, or disciples of some sort of a terrorist operation is gaining traction it seems from general news reporrts. But what could the motivation be, of these people, to plan to slaughter so many innocent bystanders? It is not that they will go to their heaven for this, there is no religion dogma that encourages this at all.

AFAIK, everybody has a price, it's just human nature. In the day and age of digital era, a simple note/message/ might be suitable for this purpose.

Frankly, I would put a USD100,000,000 reward offer out there tomorrow morning KL time, if I had the opportunity. That is chump change for all involved. If not, consider this alternative: No one will want to visit Malaysia, No one will want to travel on MH. It is not safe, it seems, to go via KL. If you had plans to travel through that airport, do you want to do so now?

There has been a lot of "flying under radar" speculation - flying low burn more fuel right? i mean the range would have suffered - right?

Quoting rcair1 (Reply 176): I'm sure it depends on "what authorities." I feel confident that the actual investigators knew. The farther you get away from them, the less confident I am that they knew. I believe the corrections are the natural 'circle back time' it takes to correct an error. In other words the sequence was something like this. 1-> Investigators/experts knew. 2-> Incident PR people - were told but may not understand it. 3-> PM Speech writers either got it wrong, or were told wrong by 2-> 4-> The press picked it up from 3. 5-> It went viral on the internet and was repeated ad nauseum 6-> The investigators/experts got wind of it and tried to get corrections out. 7-> Took a while to filter out - it is now there. So - somewhere between 2 and 3 it a mistake was introduced. The PM (or his speech writers) used "positive language" to demonstrate knowledge/control.

Makes sense, but it's still a complete failure on the parts of the individuals involved in layers 2 and/or 3. I mean, it's really not that complicated to understand in conceptual form (the underlying mechanisms no doubt being far more complex).

Southeastern part of the Indian Ocean is significant because it's the most inaccessible distance and water depth wise as well as almost 180 degrees off your original direction of travel. It's reachable with the given fuel load and with the least chance of getting detected by radar. For a suicidal pilot it makes sense. If the plane is never found then you can't say for sure that it was a suicide. The pilot would make history by being the captain of the flight that vanished in thin air, never to be seen again.

The southern arc just happens to go over the deepest area of the Indian Ocean, the Wharton Basin. It's on average 5000 meters deep and the size of Europe, no less. If you need to make a 777 disappear for good there is no better place to do that.

The only problem with this scenario is why the pilot didn't do this on a flight to Europe. That way he can turn south over the bay of Bengal and fly considerable further because of higher fuel load while completely escaping radar detection.

My understanding is that the arcs are drawn based on the angle the pings are received by the satellite. The northern most and the southern most extremities are the range limits of the a/c.

Now, it is said that the plane was flying at a lower altitude (3,500 feet) to avoid radar. Earlier it was assumed that the a/c was flying at 35,000 ft. Based on that information, and considering the same angle the pings are received, the arcs should be closer to the center, that means more to the west.

And of course, the range of the a/c is now less, therefore the arcs should be smaller (shorter on the north end of the north arc, and shorter on the south end of the southern arc.

Quoting boacvc10 (Reply 210): If you had plans to travel through that airport, do you want to do so now?

Yeah I'd do so tomorrow if I had to. Air travel is safe.

But I agree with the cash reward idea, though $100m is a little rich IMO.

Quoting boacvc10 (Reply 210): "mass murderer" might be out there who can strike again,

Unless you buy into the remote control idea - the mass murderer was on the plane and is likely dead.
Oh - I get it - you are thinking it landed somewhere....
I really struggle with that one.... but I have no data except negative (it has not been reported) type.

Quoting edmountain (Reply 212): a complete failure on the parts of the individuals involved in layers 2 and/or 3.

Failure yes - I'm not sure "complete". I know how hard I'm trying to keep up with my sanity checks, and I'm an EE and Pilot so this stuff is familiar to me. I'm also sure they are getting much more information and trying to distill it. They are passing on a lot of correct info - just not everything and many of the errors are nuanced.

Quoting sbkom (Reply 214): Now, it is said that the plane was flying at a lower altitude (3,500 feet) to avoid radar. Earlier it was assumed that the a/c was flying at 35,000 ft. Based on that information, and considering the same angle the pings are received, the arcs should be closer to the center, that means more to the west.

No one knows what altitude it was flying in the many hours after losing PSR contact. But, at the time, it was at FL295.

I don't think the stories of it flying very low are credible, unless we were not told the truth about the radar track.

Quoting SimonDanger (Reply 186): 3. Three words: China, China & China! The world's 2nd superpower, where the plane was destined, has nothing to add to this investigation other than an aberrant satellite image? Conspiracy theory: if an a/c managed to go undetected by military radar in China, they would never, ever, admit it. If they shot down an intruder in it's airspace, they would never admit that either. Just my guess.

There is a reasonable explanation for that satellite image. China spends ton of money on space research but most of it goes to signal intelligence and manned space program not on image intelligence. When this happened China didn't have lot of high res imagery for that location, so they actually purchased from others. Even then China don't have enough resources to analyze those images. Scientists from China's remote sensing institute were probably making a statement by releasing that image. I am sure they will get more funds.

Illogical conspiracy theory. China want to keep a squeaky clean image of their aviation sector. May be they just cleaned up the crash site. May be they had a hull loss of their own and 9M-MRO is getting painted in new colors with new hex code and registration. Conspiracy theories are just those conspiracy theories.

TWA800 accident had so many theories and news breaking for every theory, but no one guessed the actual reason and there are quite a few who don't want to buy the official story.

Quoting SimonDanger (Reply 186): 4. Global politics. There are thousands of military assets scanning the skies in that part of the world, by every super power and tin-pot dictator with a military. Then there's China, the U.S., Russia, Pakistan, India. Satellites, aircraft, radar, radio, sonar, cellular etc. IMHO there is far more that is known but not being said. Intelligence gathering is expensive and takes decades to deploy; a missing plane is not a big enough reason to disclose your trade-craft to your adversaries. The geo-politics of this region cannot be stressed enough.

There was one news article about this. This happened in an area where countries are spying on each other. South China Sea will be epicenter of world's next conflict (if there is one). So no one is going to tip off their capabilities just to help Malaysia.

God, just heard on the news that 'some' (not clear who) are calling for armed marshals in the cockpit to guard against pilots going rogue. FFS!!

I don't even know where to begin with that one. What happens if such a marshal flips his lid? More marshals to guard the marshals??

Quoting rcair1 (Reply 209): Because that would not fit the facts we have - the missing plane is a passenger plane.

This makes more sense that at first it may sound like. By similar logic we can extend it to "they wouldn't have landed on a dry lake bed because how would they get more fuel to the plane" and "they couldn't have landed a 777 anywhere because they would have been observed." If a hijacking was involved with the intention of stealing the plane for some later use we have to assume the hijackers thought through all of these issues and came up with solutions they thought would work.

Quoting nupogodi (Reply 215): though $100m is a little rich IMO.

Hmmm. 'little rich'? Try $100M/239 and you will understand how that can be wrong. Alternatively try this:

You go to work/school, saying goodbye to parents/spouse/significant other/kids/etc, in the morning, just like normal.

.
.
.
.
- at the end of the day you never return - no word is heard from you from some point in that time period, you have vanished, perhaps like MH370 or many years ago, like Mary Celeste
.
.
.
.
What do you think your (parents/spouse/significant other/kids/etc.) would want to do with their savings, or if they had money that they saved to be with you?

For me it has landed in the desert. Yemen or Saudi Arabia somewhere in the Empty Quarter.Plenty of unmanned runways in the area.

hmmn:

Flying With Fish ‏@flyingwithfish 7h
@PartRhymer My #MH370 tweets may be far slower than usual today, all of my sources have gone dead silent, which indicates something is afoot

Flying With Fish ‏@flyingwithfish 5h
From DHS Source, “Verified intel still supports that no evidence exists that #MH370 crashed just the opposite. The plane is hidden by now”

Flying With Fish ‏@flyingwithfish 5h
From DHS Source, “The reason I believe there’s a 25% chance of finding #MH370 is because various govts, including ours, suppressed info”

Flying With Fish ‏@flyingwithfish 5h
From a DHS source, “based on a current intel briefing I feel confident saying we have a 75% chance of not finding a trace of #MH370”

yes i know i know, its FWF...but still.

Quoting boacvc10 (Reply 210): Frankly, I would put a USD100,000,000 reward offer out there tomorrow morning KL time, if I had the opportunity.

A reward would have an opposite effect. Let's say this was a hijack and the plane has safely landed somewhere:

1) No hijacker would disclose any information about MH370 for the reward because they would be sent to directly to prison.
2) Whoever has control of this plane, money is not their motive as we would've heard from the hijackers by now.

If an average Joe has some information about the MH370's whereabouts, I would believe they would've come forward by now.

Lastly, there will be so many false-positives generated by a reward, it would completely mask any real information about MH370. If a country or multiple countries were to pony up for some type of reward, I'd rather that go into the SAR operation instead.

Quoting RussianJet (Reply 219): God, just heard on the news that 'some' (not clear who) are calling for armed marshals in the cockpit to guard against pilots going rogue. FFS!! I don't even know where to begin with that one. What happens if such a marshal flips his lid? More marshals to guard the marshals??

They should let twitchTV fly planes by chat, done problem solved..........

Quoting boacvc10 (Reply 221): What do you think your (parents/spouse/significant other/kids/etc.) would want to do with their savings, or if they had money that they saved to be with you?

Err, you think the victim's families should pay for the reward?

Um. No. I think a sizeable amount of money should be offered to anyone who can give any information that leads to the discovery of the aircraft, but I think you underestimate how much money $100M is.

Quoting RussianJet (Reply 219): God, just heard on the news that 'some' (not clear who) are calling for armed marshals in the cockpit to guard against pilots going rogue. FFS!! I don't even know where to begin with that one. What happens if such a marshal flips his lid? More marshals to guard the marshals??

Certainly a lot of hot heads will now expose themselves to the light with some crazy unflyable ideas. But also we can't ignore the fact that current security system flawed and exposed holes need to be patched somehow. I really foresee some strong changes in many aspects...

Quoting decoder (Reply 213): Southeastern part of the Indian Ocean is significant because it's the most inaccessible distance and water depth wise as well as almost 180 degrees off your original direction of travel. It's reachable with the given fuel load and with the least chance of getting detected by radar. For a suicidal pilot it makes sense. If the plane is never found then you can't say for sure that it was a suicide. The pilot would make history by being the captain of the flight that vanished in thin air, never to be seen again. The southern arc just happens to go over the deepest area of the Indian Ocean, the Wharton Basin.

That would make the wreck even more difficult to find. Here is some interesting information on side scan sonar technolody of the US Navy and it's capabilities as declared publicly - http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4300&ct=4&tid=197

Looks like it's range (swath) is a narrow 1800 meters; and when i say narrow, it is relative to the immense size of the ocean considering that we have no clue where the aircraft went down.

Quoting Das Flugzeug (Reply 55): I haven't posted here in a long time, but this sad story has me intrigued. Has anyone read this blog entry below? Seems like a plausible theory to me as a layman. Thoughts? http://keithledgerwood.tumblr.com/post/79838944823/did-malaysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68

Working Link: http://keithledgerwood.tumblr.com/po...nes-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68

I don't understand why this isn't the prevailing theory to this point. It claims the 370 maneuvered behind Singapore Airlines 68 (flying to Spain) and followed it over India and Pakistan to avoid radar detection. It's backed up with a lot of facts that I don't have time to get into but are all clearly laid out in the link above - it only takes 5 min to read and really convinced me. I've tried but I can't poke any holes in it right now (other than having a suitable runway but there are dry lake bed options, etc. that I don't think should shoot down this theory). SIA 68 was cruising at 30,000 ft at the point where MH 370 would have intercepted which explains the 29,500 ft report that came out early in the investigation - they were flying 500 ft below SIA 68 and would not be noticed on any radar. It also explains the random hard left it took right after "Alright, good night" and the hard right over the Andaman Sea. It also fits perfectly with the northern arc blip from 8:11AM (keep in mind a/c may have been on ground and not powered down at this point - if it landed).

Maybe I'm missing something (which I'm sure you guys will point out) but this seems to cover almost every report that we currently believe to be true.

[Edited 2014-03-17 13:03:57]

[Edited 2014-03-17 13:05:01]

Just a question, I read several times that the ACARS was supposed to transmit a half-hour after it last did so. Therefore, it was supposed to transmit at 1:37 a.m. -- but it didn't. So, the ACARS was shut down sometime between 1:07 and 1:37 a.m. It's a significant event: Turning off ACARS takes know-how.

What exactly means "know-how"? Remember, what happened between 1:07 and 1:37, last voice contact, Transponder off, climbing to FL450, turning ACARS off, can this all REALLY be done by ONE person in the cockpit? Seems to be a lot of work for two hands.... How difficult is switching off ACARS? Just one or two steps in the computer or a bigger task?

Quoting RussianJet (Reply 219): I don't even know where to begin with that one. What happens if such a marshal flips his lid? More marshals to guard the marshals??

Better yet, what they would achieve against a suicidal pilot nosediving his aircraft? Desist or I'll shoot you?

Quoting MarcoT (Reply 230): Better yet, what they would achieve against a suicidal pilot nosediving his aircraft? Desist or I'll shoot you?

I would say the question will not be even asked if there is strong evidence the pilot is about to nosedive.

Quoting EC135 (Reply 229): climbing to FL450

I thought this was debunked.

Seems quite unlikely, anyway, given the full tanks.

Quoting DTW2HYD (Reply 218): When this happened China didn't have lot of high res imagery for that location, so they actually purchased from others. Even then China don't have enough resources to analyze those images. Scientists from China's remote sensing institute were probably making a statement by releasing that image. I am sure they will get more funds.

China bought that imagery because they didn't have satellites in position at the time. They moved 10 in to search. I'm betting now their capability is pretty high.

Quoting RussianJet (Reply 219): God, just heard on the news that 'some' (not clear who) are calling for armed marshals in the cockpit to guard against pilots going rogue. FFS!! I don't even know where to begin with that one. What happens if such a marshal flips his lid? More marshals to guard the marshals??

Same story as normal, people freak out over stupid things, but don't think about the cost involved. So we should have armed marshals on every flight? If people think flying can be cost prohibitive now, they are in for a rude awakening if that were to ever come to light. Thankfully it never will.

Quoting goosebayguy (Reply 222): For me it has landed in the desert. Yemen or Saudi Arabia somewhere in the Empty Quarter.Plenty of unmanned runways in the area.

Unmanned runways big enough to land a 777? I doubt it. I fly into airstrips all the time that don't have people constantly working there. But they aren't 6,000 feet. Try 3,000 feet and smaller. If there is a runway big enough to land a 777 and maintained well enough for a safe landing there is for sure going to be someone around.

Quoting CaliAtenza (Reply 223): tweets may be far slower than usual today, all of my sources have gone dead silent, which indicates something is afoot

Perhaps an operation in the works?

Quoting CaliAtenza (Reply 223): Flying With Fish ‏@flyingwithfish 5h From a DHS source, “based on a current intel briefing I feel confident saying we have a 75% chance of not finding a trace of #MH370”

This guy has been pretty good, but I'm not ruling out it's discovery just yet.
Pat

Quoting jetblueguy22 (Reply 233): Quoting CaliAtenza (Reply 223): tweets may be far slower than usual today, all of my sources have gone dead silent, which indicates something is afoot Perhaps an operation in the works?

Possibly. One or multiple governments could be in contact with the hijackers and are being completely mum to the public to ensure operational security. In this day and age though, I would be completely shocked if there wasn't some sort of leak about an ongoing operation.

On the other hand, it could mean his sources have run out of information to provide.

Quoting LTC8K6 (Reply 70): LTC8K6 From United States of America, joined Jun 2009, 793 posts, RR: 0 Reply 70, posted Mon Mar 17 2014 15:33:31 your local time (3 hours 19 minutes 33 secs ago) and read 32494 times: It's under water as far as I am concerned. I can't see any government getting involved. Just a matter of time before evidence of the crash shows up.

I also think this is likely to be the case. I cannot see any far fetched scenario where the aircraft has been flown to a secret location by shadowing another airliner etc etc for future use. The planning required to pull this off would be massive involving a worldwide team with members in many locations across various countries. Intelligence would likely have had a hint that something of this nature was in the planning as many international calls and/or much internet chat would have been going on for many months or longer.

The change of Captain at the last minute also suggests that a combined Captain/Co-pilot plan was unlikely. When I think of it, it also suggests an unlikelihood that the Captain was involved, neither did he wish to commit suicide. I am assuming the latter since it appears that he was scheduled to be off at the time, then asked at the last minute to operate the flight. How could he have put such an elaborate plan together at such short notice?

To me, this narrows things down to the co-pilot. Also corroborated by the latest suggestion that the co-pilot may have made the last radio call after the first stages of the plan have already been set in motion.

The climb to much higher than normal altitude followed by erratic altitude flying could indeed be explained by a struggle on the flight deck. It could also contrarily have been part of the plan to eliminate the passengers and cabin crew as quickly as possible by hypoxia, knowing that the flight deck has access to a much longer supply of oxygen.

The co-pilot could ultimately have set the aircraft to head south for the vast Indian Ocean (or north to the vast expanses of uninhabited wilderness), then also killed himself so that the aircraft would continue for many hours until fuel starvation and ultimate crash. No weapon would have been necessary, he could simply have depressurized the aircraft (for the second time assuming he re-pressurized after all the passengers were dead/unconscious) and let hypoxia set in. This is a painless way to die.

If this theory, or something close to it is what happened. Debris will be found somewhere (maybe not for a long time) in the Indian Ocean or wreckage somewhere in China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or even Turkmenistan. I have recently flown a route in the vicinity of the outer part of the northern arc over some of these countries and can assure posters/readers that these countries have vast uninhabited expanses of desert/wilderness/mountains and the burned out wreckage of a B772 would be tiny in comparison. The only thing that might make such a thing a little easier to spot might be the fact that significant areas of higher ground in these areas is at present snow covered making a dark spot more obvious.

I do think however that the Indian Ocean is somewhat more likely.

Quoting DrivesForShow (Reply 228): I don't understand why this isn't the prevailing theory to this point. It claims the 370 maneuvered behind Singapore Airlines 68 (flying to Spain) and followed it over India and Pakistan to avoid radar detection. It's backed up with a lot of facts that I don't have time to get into but are all clearly laid out in the link above - it only takes 5 min to read and really convinced me.

At some point it had to stop following the SIA aircraft, what proof we have it really could have then landed without any radar noticing it at any point? Also why there are no demands from the hijackers? Why would someone do that?

I think it's far more likely the aircraft just flew south towards Indian Ocean, then it wouldn't have had to follow any other aircraft as in most areas there's no radar coverage.

Quoting CaliAtenza (Reply 222): yes i know i know, its FWF...but still.

I don't believe a second that 'Flying with Fish' has any real information besides that available in public domain. He is just an internet troll.

Quoting pvjin (Reply 236): Also why there are no demands from the hijackers? Why would someone do that?

Agreed, although this could be happening via back channels. But, then again, why search all of SE Asia and the Indian Ocean if someone was in contact with the hijackers in the first place?

Quoting MarcoT (Reply 230): Better yet, what they would achieve against a suicidal pilot nosediving his aircraft? Desist or I'll shoot you?

Yeah, and then what next if he does stop - fly the plane properly or I'll kill you? Yup, it's very well thought out alright.

Quoting Finn350 (Reply 237): I don't believe a second that 'Flying with Fish' has any real information besides that available in public domain. He is just an internet troll.

He is a self-proclaimed internet "Travel Social Media Consultant." Whatever he says is on the internet so it must be true. There is no way his only goal is to generate web hits and get followers.  

Quoting awthompson (Reply 235): To me, this narrows things down to the co-pilot. Also corroborated by the latest suggestion that the co-pilot may have made the last radio call after the first stages of the plan have already been set in motion.

This is a well-though-out post but the latest timeline does not mandate the last radio call happening after the first stages of the event.

Quoting EC135 (Reply 229): How difficult is switching off ACARS? Just one or two steps in the computer or a bigger task?

There is ACARS manager in communication management menues of multifunctional display (MFD) where you can deselect all three channels for ACARS to contact ground: VHF, Satcom and HF. Turning off all three will leave you with no donwlink messages, but uplink messages will still work.

Quoting awthompson (Reply 235): I am assuming the latter since it appears that he was scheduled to be off at the time, then asked at the last minute to operate the flight.

Actually, this could cast suspicion on him, for a variety of reasons.

This was the right flight to try to do this with. Redeye. Long-ish distance with a large widebody. So asking to operate it is a concern.

He could have been thinking about doing this for a long time. He could have all the elements in place, ready to go on a few hours' notice, even for the land-and-reuse plan.

One thing terrorists have taught us is the value of patience. Bin Laden failed to knock down the towers in '93, by a hair. Security was changed. He adapted, and put into place a plan that WAS KNOWN TO AUTHORITIES AS EARLY AS 1995. It wasn't a "failure of imagination" on the part of the intelligence community. It was a "failure to listen", a failure not to condescendingly-dismiss a plot that was described in detail by the Bojinka Plot folks in 1995. It took years to bring to fruition, but once ready, it could have been instigated on a day's notice, and was.

That said, the obvious suicide mission for this plane is to take it and ram it into the Petronas Towers. Quick. Easy. Nearby. Nobody would have time to react. Instead, the plane goes on a six-plus hours sojourn. Unless your plan (which is stupid) is to dump it in the Indian Ocean in a place nobody will find it, it makes a LOT more sense that you're going to do something else with it.

And for all the talk about how good the radar coverage is in some of these countries, the reality is that in times of relative peace, folks relax. And there was a map posted earlier that shows a clear path through areas that have no primary military radar and only ADS-B. Blips without a transponder on ADS-B don't cause fighters to be scrambled; they are usually dismissed as a flock of geese.

It's as likely that this thing landed somewhere as that it is in the Indian Ocean. It is also probable that nobody has yet to suggest what turns out to be the actual scenario, because it seems so improbable -- like what happened with Air France.

Quoting gatorman96 (Reply 234): Possibly. One or multiple governments could be in contact with the hijackers and are being completely mum to the public to ensure operational security. In this day and age though, I would be completely shocked if there wasn't some sort of leak about an ongoing operation. On the other hand, it could mean his sources have run out of information to provide.

It could also mean his trying to keep his audience in the room instead of walking out on him.

Quoting flyKiWi (Reply 128): Crazy to think of Air Marshals 'policing' pilots as well

And who would even be 'policing' maniacal Air Marshals?

Quoting awthompson (Reply 235):

This is about the soberest and most considered of the possible explanations. It depends, however, on the FO wishing to dispose of all possible evidence of his acts (otherwise he would just push the nose over once he had control of the plane). To me this would rule out the "northern arc." Too much chance of wreckage (and thus evidence) being discovered and the truth coming out.

Quoting pvjin (Reply 236): At some point it had to stop following the SIA aircraft, what proof we have it really could have then landed without any radar noticing it at any point? Also why there are no demands from the hijackers? Why would someone do that? I think it's far more likely the aircraft just flew south towards Indian Ocean, then it wouldn't have had to follow any other aircraft as in most areas there's no radar coverage.

Definitely not, you won't need to do all this just for flying towards the Indian Ocean and running out of fuel.... the northern scenario is much more likely. The aircraft is in my opinion sitting in one piece on the ground on a remote field in the Turkmenistan or Pakistan area covered with camouflage and waiting to be used in terrorist attack e.g. as a dirty bomb. In all other scenarios the very very well planned action to make this a/c disappear would make no sense at all.

Quoting pvjin (Reply 236): At some point it had to stop following the SIA aircraft, what proof we have it really could have then landed without any radar noticing it at any point? Also why there are no demands from the hijackers? Why would someone do that? I think it's far more likely the aircraft just flew south towards Indian Ocean, then it wouldn't have had to follow any other aircraft as in most areas there's no radar coverage.

I am just wondering if the TCAS would not have gone off on the SIA plane(assuming it is equipped). MH772 would have to follow pretty close to not be picked up as an individual contact. Does anyone know if TCAS picks up radar contacts, or does it only pick up transponder equipped aircraft.

Quoting wjcandee (Reply 243): Quoting awthompson (Reply 235): I am assuming the latter since it appears that he was scheduled to be off at the time, then asked at the last minute to operate the flight. Actually, this could cast suspicion on him, for a variety of reasons.

I think that what awthompson was saying was not that he asked at the last minute but that he "was asked at the last minute."