I read and agree far fetched. Just absolutely no chance is a bit of hyperbole.

If material is low level radioactive waste you need both a big plane and a reason for someone to shoot it down at altitude. Not sure that it would be easier to hijack a cargo plane, it might be. If so then I agree with you.

But I am not convinced there would be a way to get that big of plane and the world looking and scared. Pretty sure if some random cargo plane got hijacked in North Africa we wouldn't have the same paranoia and not sure you could get Israeli fighters to shoot it down at 35k feet as you would want in dirty bomb scenario.

Edit: Thinking about it a bit more it would be easier to do waste and explosives and blow it up yourself. Earlier thought process was obviously a bit flawed.

Thanks for clarifying. I don't see the complete reprogramming of the FMS as impossible on paper, but indeed if the other systems are completely controlled by non computer-controlled circuit breakers and switches then it's not possible (if they are indeed "dumb" electro-mechanical switches, not the kind that actually sends an input to a computer, which could otherwise be reproduced, like the key of a keyboard or the power switch of most modern laptops).

There are interesting statements in the wired article linked to above. May I ask:
- assuming the premise of an onboard emergency, it makes sense that the captain would head towards the nearest suitable airport. Would he (you) do that by programming the auto-pilot and if so would he (you) program it only to head towards the airport or also to land there?
- if the captain did NOT program the autopilot for a landing, what is the autopilot supposed to do once reaching the waypoint and nobody takes back control?
- in the event that the autopilot also eventually got damaged in the incident/fire while on the way to the airport, and the crew is incapacitated, what happens to the plane then? I guess since nobody or nothing makes input to its controls, to correct its trajectory, it should crash pretty quick, no?
- what would be an explanation for the turn towards the NW and the final position calculated from the ACARS pings?

I don't think AirTran ever flew the 727, and that's certainly not a 727 in the picture you included.

This is very much situation dependent. If I'm over land (and thus talking to a controller), I may just ask the controller for vectors if I've got my hands full with the emergency. Time permitting, I'll simply put a fix into the FMS and fly direct to that fix (this could be a VOR near or at the airport, or a fix on the arrival, or just a fix that the controller supplies to me). The "programming" involved is to simply type in the fix name, put it on the top line and then hit the execute button and engage LNAV.

If I'm out over the middle of the ocean with an emergency, I am probably diverting to either Keflavik or Lajes. In either case, I've already got those airports in Route 2 of the FMS (kind of a standby route for use in emergency). I'll just make route 2 the active route and fly direct to the airport.

You really can't program these things to land. That's a common misconception. We can enter the ILS arrival into the box and fly all the fixes right to the runway. You can even have altitudes and speeds associated with the fixes and it will start down and attempt to slow down at the proper time. But the plane won't configure itself (lowering gear and flaps) and won't slow below a safe speed for the current configuration. Thus, if no one is there to dirty up the plane, it might fly right down to the runway with the gear up and at a fast speed...kind of a controlled crash.

After reaching the last waypoint in the list, the autopilot will revert to Heading Mode and hold the heading it had when crossing that waypoint.

It could fly for quite some time, perhaps hours, without crashing. If it's trimmed properly (and the autopilot actually makes trim adjustments, except for aileron trim), it could just enter gradual turns one way or the other and the altitude might vary somewhat.

Again, I have to admit to not being glued to the constant barrage of updates on this event. I keep my distance in order to preserve my sanity in the sea of baseless speculation going on. I really have no idea what you're referring to.

What if this was just some sort of test run, and there was no other purpose other than testing out some sort of hacking / takeover technology done either remotely or by a passenger/stowaway/pilot whose family was threatened etc. ?

Maybe there is some terrorist organization that is planning to simultaneously hijack like 50 planes and cause havoc all over the world, and this was their trial run to see if their plan would work? Obviously their plan would have to involve hijacking many planes at once, or else they wouldn't bother testing it first and would just have gone for it.

They just 'took over' the plane somehow, dicked around with it, made sure they had complete control, and then flew it somewhere remote and crashed it into the sea so we can't find it and figure out what they did

What if it was the Russians? I mean, way to hijack the media whilst they landgrab Crimea? And Turkmenistan and the other Stan's are all easily accessible to Russia if they did fly the northern corridor?

this story is super fascinating. really hope its not sitting somwhere in the bottom of the ocean, but prob is.

how long did it take them to find debris from that air france A330 plane that crashed in the atlantic ocean near brazil a while back? i know it took them like 2 yrs or w/e to find the blackbox, but didn't they find debris and concluded that it crashed in just couple of days?


also lol @ some of the ridic theories on here.

no way that plane holding is a 727....most likely a bombardier learjet type. that said ya a 777 is pretty **** big, so shocking how it can just disappear in a place like it did. i mean, middle of the ocean somewhat understandable, but so many different countries in that area.

My first guess was Africa. I definitely think a terrorist group has it. I know they usually take credit right away but I think they may be adjusting here. I was thinking they could take all the people off and use them later, then load the plane up with explosives, turning it into a more powerful weapon...Shows like 24 make you think about crazy stuff like this...

In my Tom Clancy fantasy version of these events it was indeed the Russian, enabling some Islamic terrorists who they can put the blame on to load up this plane with explosives to fly in the nuclear summit in The Hague, which incidentally, Putin will not attend.

In the ensuing chaos after the world's leaders have been killed, Putin will make a big power grab.

Thankfully it was very likely something much less exciting.

i really dont think it was hijacked by terrorists.

did it even have enough fuel to fly to africa? i mean why the fk would they try to hijack it from malaysia and fly it that far? seems way too risky to get detected and too much of a hassle. if they wanted, wouldn't it be so much easier just hijacking a same type of plane from one of the african countries? i mean airport security there has to be worse than malaysia im assuming.

In the air france flight, they found debris (and bodies) within a few days, although I think it took over a year to actually locate the plane on the ocean floor, and then even longer to recover the black boxes from those depths (I think it was one of the deepest recoveries ever).

However, they pretty much knew where the air france flight went down. The difference in the size of the search area between that crash and this one is about the same difference between the amount of heat a plane gives off compared to a volcano.

Conspiracy theorists who think the government constantly knows where every object on every square inch of the earth is at all times don't realize just how big this planet is, and how little governments actually know about a lot of these things.

Off-topic, but I was looking at size comparisons between the 737 and the 777 and found some pictures of the Airbus A380, which I had no idea existed. Holy hell that is a big damn plane...

Yes. It crashed on June 1, 2009. They found 2 bodies on June 6 and the first piece of the plane on June 7. They found 50 bodies by June 16.

They found the debris field underwater on April 3, 2011 and recovered the black box on May 2.

Uh, how is that crazy? The only obstacles in the air are other planes, and there's plenty of room between the two.

Probably just noise, but I'm reading some reports of the plane being spotted flying low in the Maldives at 6:15AM local time.

Link: http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062

Saw that also. Calls for the ultimate "needs pic".

Because this isnt possible. Yes yes I saw the same article talking about someone hacking the avionics with their iphone, and it was all rubbish. There is no way to "hack" into an airplane.

Considering you can purchase a 737 for under a million dollars there's little to reason to believe this was a hijack attempt meant to re-use the plane. Any organization sophisticated enough to execute a hijacking like this would surely have the funds necessary to make a much simpler operation and just buy a plane and crash it like new.

Wouldn't be the first time a big plane has just disappeared full of people.. (Pentagon)

Something like this also came to my mind, but it sounds a bit too James Bondish.

A quick question, is it even possible to jump out of a commercial airplane?

Trial run is such a dumb idea. The way security works is you have a hole in security, someone takes advantage of it and then they close that hole. Doing a trial run makes no sense whatsoever.

Was it ever confirmed the pilots wife actually left him or maybe just spending time at their other house.

I'm not at all saying this was a trial run, as I don't think it was, but you are a ****ing goofball. Obv, in this case, security isn't/wouldn't be aware of what the security hole is since we don't even know what happened at all given the whole "inexplicably disappeared" thing everyone is making a fuss about

That being said, trial run for a terrorist act of this magnitude is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of in my life.