Just when i thoguht i had erased any trace of The Event from my memory this goes and happens.

I'm grasping at straws here obviously.

Here's my theory. Explosive decompression, with whatever caused the explosion taking out the transponders (and maybe the radio) at the same time. Pilots are on emergency oxygen, turn around and try and take the plane back to the nearest airport... Run out of oxygen... Ghost plane scenario into the Indian Ocean where it crashes.

Questions (to woxof and others)

1. Where are these transponders located? Could a single event cause decompression and damage to the transponders at the same time? What about other radio systems? Are they all in the same place? Do they use any of the same components?

2. How does autopilot work? Someone mentions something about altitude being programmed in separately?

I.e. Pilots manually set course for return airport, set autopilot direction, lower altitude to a safe pressure, something goes wrong, they go back onto autopilot and the autopilot takes them back up to original height where they all die.

Ok, even simpler theory. Scratch that last part. Explosive decompression, pilots pass out due to the effects of the bends, autopilot just keeps them going north until they crash...

More questions.

1. I assume that a big pressure change could cause the pilots to pass out? if it was the cockpit which blew out, they could even get sucked out of the hole, Hollywood movie style.

2. Autopilot... Is this plausible? I.e. With no further instruction, the plane just keeps flying on that arc until it crashes?

This all assumes that a bunch of the info we have been given is just rubbish. I.e. The altitude changes, etc,

Possible but very unlikely someone could've already been in cockpit at time of last transmission. I think this is further unlikely because of the casual signoff. Also lean towards the pilots because of that timing. Even if hijackers had this idea that they'd hijack between ATCs it would be so hard to get that timing down!

I think rugby's theory is definitely possible.

If it were a pilot I'd still say the captain is more likely. The younger guy just seems like he would be less likely to pull off such a feat technically, would be more likely that captain could request younger to leave to do something than vice versa, and psychologically the captain is being portrayed as someone who is a "thinker" that could lead to deep resentment and general anger, while the younger one seems quite normal and happy.

There were supposedly specific directions chosen by the plane computer after the transponder went off, which lead to the claims of someone skilled being in control. This could also have been an oxygen deprived pilot frantically programming something in.

Also I'm not even sure that specific waypoints were chosen or if they were just flying in those directions.

They did not fly along the arcs, the arcs represent vicinity of last satellite ping received. But yes, I do think autopilot could've kept flying. See the Payne Stewart crash as an example.

I'm pretty sure there's no possible way a pilot of a 777 could ever become oxygen deprived unless the oxygen delivery system itself malfunctioned, or of course he did something stupid and failed to don his mask. They dont have cheesy little overhead oxygen masks like the passengers, they have military style fighter pilot masks that sit right next to their seats. I'm sure pilots are also trained to become aware of the effects of oxygen deprivation, not that it would matter since they have a couple of warning devices in the cockpit alerting them when cabin pressure is getting too low well before suffering hypoxia.

Lol so true

There are two types of radar ATC (and the military uses) - primary and secondary - a decent explanation is here.

Primary radar essentially attempts to detect anything of substance in the air - obviously their main objective is planes, but it also picks up flocks of birds and weather (thunderclouds and heavy rain for example). The reason stealth planes are made the way they are is to not get seen by primary radar.

Secondary radar just picks up airplanes' transponder codes and ATC receives information depending on what options are selected by the pilot on the transponder. Pilots can choose what information does and doesn't go out (they can disable altitude readouts for example). Stealth planes don't have to dodge secondary radar because they (hopefully) have their transponder off.

As some mentioned, you could "piggyback" on another aircraft by just turning your transponder off and the radar will pick up your two planes as one. Of course occasionally they may show up as 2 targets, but if they're quite far away they are from the radar tower chances are it comes up as one. You see it with military formations all the time. With a large plane it is less likely of course, but still possible. Additionally, if you're flying below a particular altitude radar might not even pick you up.

You would be surprised at how much stuff radar could possibly miss, and how much actually goes on in the air. There are weapons controllers covering the entire US (and Canada - good ol' NORAD) that deal with Russian and other 'bogey' aircraft all the time. Obviously you just don't hear about it...

+1

What's that? Google obviously has a lot of hits for "the event"

Prob. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1582459/

An awful NBC series that lasted like 15 episodes.

Any theory that this was not hijacking has to explain why the plane flew between several waypoints, imitating common routes of commercial flights in the area.

So I finally took the time to look up how ACARS works. There are articles here and here on it.

Basically ACARS is a messaging system where the messages can be sent either via VHF radio or SATCOM. It's a bit like how you can access the internet via wifi or 3G, it's the same internet just different access routes.

SATCOM is the same system that provided the pings to the Inmarsat satellite. It's hard to come up with a scenario where the plane responds to SATCOM pings from Inmarsat, but cannot transmit ACARS messages, without ACARS having been turned off by human hands. So this looks like more confirmation that this was piracy.

If they keep going north then they crash on land and someone would have to see/hear it. With the way the radius is set on the north section they would be flying over and crashing in some very densely populated areas.

ah, yeah i clicked the imdb link but didn't seem relevant to this thread after a quick look

thanks

Maybe a silly question because I either missed it or it's just stupid. But given all the information and theories, whether these are right or wrong, can we ''rule out'' that this was an accident?

Season premier had a plane just disappear outta thing air that was hijacked heading towards White House.

Not oxygen deprivation, just pressure sickness. I.e if you change from high to low pressure quickly, the nitrogen in your blood and brain can form bubbles that can kill you pretty quickly.

I'm now wondering if it actually flew between waypoints or if those were calculated as best-fit waypoint approximations. Just like the ACARS being turned off thing was false/misspoken, I'm not sure about this either. Either way, that may be enough evidence that a human was at the controls.

I think given the conflicting and inaccurate information we are being given, we can place a high probability that any one "fact" we think we have, just simply isn't true.

The arc is where the plane ended, not the path it took. The whole point is that there are tons of sparsely populated areas around the arc where no one would be around.

I don't think it can be ruled out, but the transponder going off being occurring just after signing off with Malaysian ATC and further indication of human controlling the path means it's very unlikely imo

Some of that arc is pretty damn empty. The above is a population density map.

What further indication? I thought we have one report which suggests a bunch of height and location changes, but at least one of these (flew up to 45,000 feet) we know not to be possible.

Occam's razor suggests that the timing was pure coincidence.