It's all been gone over earlier ITT, but briefly, whoever was flying the plane showed a lot of aviation knowledge, flying between set waypoints and then apparently taking a path to avoid radar coverage, disabling the transponder and ACARS, etc. The FBI uncovered a similar path in deleted material on the captain's home flight simulator. Cockpit doors are locked since 9/11, so it's unclear how a silent hijacking could take place, especially so quickly (last ATC voice contact was at 1:19, the transponder was disabled at 1:21). Nobody on the passenger manifest fits the description either of a terrorist or an experienced pilot. And probably most compellingly, trying to hide the plane in the ocean is the exact opposite of what a terrorist would do. Terrorists want to publicise their deeds.

Positing a hijacking doesn't solve any existing mystery, we would still have a guy intentionally ditching a plane for unclear reasons. It just creates a host of new, even more outlandish mysteries.

IDK what has happened since, by the way. I think Malaysian may have installed GPS tracking in their fleet, not sure though.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/436876...assissination/

Lots of theories. Why couldn’t it have been co-pilot?

That article seems completely irrelevant.

It's not impossible at all that it was the co-pilot, but suggestive of the captain are: the similar deleted route on his home flight simulator, his much greater experience compared to his counterpart, recent disruptions in his personal and political life, and the fact that we know he was at the controls two minutes before the transponder was disabled. The last voice contact to ATC at 1:19 was him.

Stop engaging golfnutt. No clue why he's not banned yet.

This is all going down this week. Pretty cool stuff.

If the pilot hit the water, I am sure the plane was smashed to bits. Like hitting concrete. Finding that black box would be an engineering marvel.

85% chance of success in 3 months?

I would bet they don't find it and take +500. That is some neat negotiation tactics on both sides.

Game on.

I'm just catching the tail end of this thread and have always thought it was pilot suicide or something to that effect. Don't quite understand why he'd be so careful to avoid radar though. If you're bent on killing yourself and don't care if you take others with you just crash the plane anywhere. Why go through all the trouble of avoiding radar?

There are also other very rare events that might've taken place. Could it have been a sudden loss in cabin pressure and maybe he passed out with his hand on a knob or control that veered the plane into slow descent turn?

We can speculate all we want, but only finding the plane and black box are likely to turn up meaningful answers imo.

Many people have tried to make suicide look like "accidents". Suicide is frowned upon. He also might have been a sociopath that wanted to get the enjoyment knowing that people would be confused and it would take years to unravel, if ever. Kind of like the Mandalay Bay Shooter who went through great pains to leave little clues of why he did it.

Because you don't want people to know what you did. Believe it or not, that applies to most murderers.

The plane made not one but several turns after the transponder and ACARS were disabled and it left its route. It was tracked by Malaysian military radar:



We know from the Inmarsat data that after radar lost it, it must have taken a further turn south, to head down into the southern Indian Ocean. Radar lost it almost an hour after the transponder was disabled and it made its first deviation from its set route. So the facts aren't consistent with sudden hypoxia, or with anything sudden.

Clearly the pilot didn't want to be found. Why that is is speculation, as with all else concerning his motive, but there's plenty of precedent for that, including a prior pilot suicide case where he attempted to conceal what had happened (SilkAir 185).

Unfortunately the black box may not work after years on the ocean floor. At least we can be pretty sure it wasn't disabled. On the 777, the controls to do that are only accessible through a floor panel at the aft of the cabin. There are far fetched scenarios where the pilot could suffocate everyone then go back and disable it, but it seems unlikely he'd bother considering he expected the plane to never be found - and would have been correct if it weren't for the Inmarsat pings.

Surprised this thread is still going. Pretty sure this case has been solved.

Just want to say I enjoy your posts on this subject and hope you continue when there are updates

Thanks! I got interested in the case and posted a pile about it back when it happened and still remember a lot of the facts. I'd sort of given up on it, but I'll follow this new search, it's interesting and looks promising imo.

I posted it earlier ITT, but one other little minor piece of evidence for involvement of the captain. This is from a senior 777 captain with a major airline called Simon Hardy:

Maybe this is relevant and maybe not, but it makes some sense when you look at the map above. The plane could have flown straight between the point where it left its route and the point where radar lost it. Instead it deviates in the precise direction required and does this sweeping turn over Penang. The alternative theory is that the pilot wanted to straddle the border between Thailand and Malaysia to confuse ATC about whose airspace it was in, but if that was the plan it would have turned before Penang.

The new search may have begun today, by the way, it's unclear. If it wasn't underway today, it will be tomorrow.

Well, it's already tomorrow there so maybe it did actually start today.

You seem well-versed.

On your point of precedent, that isn't enough to draw a definitive conclusion. There are hundreds of thousands of flights and you are choosing just one from the past.

If the black box does not work, are we just left to go on theories? What info could be on the black box? I don't think it shows who was at the controls.

Thanks

lol, well, apparently the search vessel won't arrive at the search site until this weekend. The Malaysian DCA (like their NTSB) will be giving weekly updates to the media, but also daily updates to next of kin on the DCA website - it's not clear whether those updates will be publicly accessible.

If the FDR works, it will probably establish that there was nothing physically wrong with the plane. It's not going to be possible to establish beyond any doubt who was at the controls, short of finding an intact cockpit, which I assume is very unlikely. But the FDR would also establish which set of controls the flight commands were issued from. If they're from the captain's seat, and we know that Shah was in the cockpit less than two minutes before the route deviation (from ATC comms), then that's going to be good enough for me.

I thought a big part of this $70 million mission was to locate the block box. I guess they could get lucky and find the box near the plane. Probably as much for closure for the government and relatives as well.


MH370 report reveals black box battery expired a year before flight

https://www.theverge.com/2015/3/8/81...-before-flight

Interesting article here about a guy who spends his time looking for pieces of debris from the flight. He thinks, based on pieces of debris he has found, that there was likely not a controlled ditching into the ocean, but that it was probably just flameout and then dive uncontrolled into the ocean. Gotta say the controlled ditching theories never made sense to me. The captain didn't want to be found, but few are hardcore enough to steer the plane into a ditching in the southern Indian Ocean, something which guarantees a miserable death. I always thought it likely that the captain would have killed himself at altitude with hypoxia.

@ChrisV

To your knowledge is there a good, thorough TV documentary covering this story ?

I'm a documentaries junkie and this is such an interesting case.

A group in India is a making a movie about it (with their theory?) and should be out soon - it is called 'The Vanishing Act'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4rKJaGQbcY

Yeah if they have the money to put up and a good idea where to look(which I think they do) then spending 10 million on a 25% chance of finding it is a solid investment.

so it seems the pilot 100% did all this on purpose?

I thought it was a bad storm and plane unfortunately took a turn for the worse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5QCmd6ArZk

Best I have found

Fantastic series as well, been watching this show since well before this incident. Well worth checking out other episodes if you find this stuff interesting.

There's that BBC one as well. From the year it happened (2014). I haven't watched any of them. Might skim some of the Air Crash Investigations one.