Miscellaneous > Non-DP Related Mysteries!

The 2014 disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370

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eurocentric:
The infamous airliner which has never been found despite extensive sonar searches across the Indian Ocean.

Some seem to believe, due to the aircrafts's changes in direction, the switching off of the radio and transponder unit, and the way it supposedly ditched in a controlled way, according to those who have examined a piece of wing wreckage washed ashore, that one of the flight crew committed murder-suicide, and having locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit and rendered the passengers unconscious by limiting oxygen he then flew on for some 6 or 7 hours until the plane ran out of fuel, and all of this had been pre-planned to make the plane undiscovered.

Me, I tend to return to first witnesses who reliably maintain their testimony, and there was a firewatcher on an oil rig who rang the coastguard with a sighting of fire in the sky. At the time this was dismissed as it did not match the flightpath of any known airliner, but it later transpired it could have been this plane. It has then been suggested that lithium batteries in the cargo hold may have caught fire, though this should not have prevented the crew sending a distress signal.

I look to the case of a similar plane sat on the runway at Cairo, where a fire broke out when a short circuit ignited the tubes carrying the crew's oxygen, which was behind a panel above their heads. Nobody could extinguish it and the plane was ultimately written off.

A similar incident would mean the MH370 crew would soon become incapacitated, unable to breathe, and perhaps spend their last moments trying to isolate the fire, switching off circuit breakers, or the fire did so, and hoping to save their passengers they may have punched the wrong code into the autopilot to return to and automatically land at an airport, or it malfunctioned, taking the plane towards Western Australia, despite insufficient fuel.

What do you think explains this aviation mystery?

Manti:
It's one of those incidents that are impossible to make sense of.

The plane changed direction. I don't think it could have been pilot incapacitation, because in that case it would continue flying the pre-programmed path or if the autopilot is off just continue in the same direction it was already in. But it made several turns... this leaves 3 options: deliberate pilot input (either flying manually or reprogramming the route for the autopilot), deliberate hijacker input, fault with the flight controls.

Hijacking is unlikely, because of the route flown. It doesn't make sense to hijack a plane just to have it run out of fuel in the middle of the Indian Ocean. If they were trying to reach let's say Australia, there was a shorter route.

Fault with the flight controls is also unlikely given that the plane flew for around 7 hours after first deviating from the planned path.

That leaves deliberate pilot action... One weird thing is that the satellite link is lost around the same time as the transponder signal, but the satellite link is then re-established (but not the transponder). Perhaps there was some kind of electrical fault... but then the electricity returns, and the pilot still doesn't send any distress signal or make attempts to land. Then the plane makes another turn, south, around the area of the Andaman Islands. So someone was still in the cockpit and the plane could be maneuvered.

Any way I look at it, it seems like pilot murder-suicide, maybe with an attempt to make it look like something else by flying to a remote area with no radar coverage so the black boxes aren't found (because the crash site won't be known exactly, unlike in the case of crashing in the gulf of Thailand / South China sea).

The argument against a fire is the long time for which the plane was flying from the onset of the incident. In case of a fire the pilots would attempt to land as soon as possible. It can disable the electronics, making radio communication impossible, and maybe in that case it makes sense to turn around and instead of flying to the nearest airport, fly to Penang which the pilot apparently knew well. But, no attempt was made to land there, and the plane flew on...

eurocentric:
There are valid arguments against the fire, but a reliable witness saw fire in the sky so something has to explain that, at the very least an engine fire before something else happened.

Equally I've wondered why a man who has killed his co-pilot, cabin crew and passengers flies on for 6 or 7 hours for a belated suicide. Usually people just get on with it.

It's an exceedingly long anticipation of his own death, all while dealing with the enormity of what he has done, unless of course he committed suicide early and the plane flew on until it ran out of fuel, stalled and nosedived into the ocean.

But set against that there are some claiming it had a piloted landing in the ocean. So he wished to commit murder-suicide but conversely did a controlled landing, then to explain the dichotomy they say this was done to keep the plane as intact as possible for a sinking with little floating wreckage. But that also makes it more likely the plane would be identified on sonar, provided of course that they search the right zone.

It would be easier to assume aliens abducted Flight MH370.

Manti:

--- Quote from: eurocentric on May 22, 2023, 04:03:53 AM ---There are valid arguments against the fire, but a reliable witness saw fire in the sky so something has to explain that, at the very least an engine fire before something else happened.

--- End quote ---
I haven't read about this. Was this witnessed around the area where the plane turned around?


--- Quote from: eurocentric on May 22, 2023, 04:03:53 AM ---Equally I've wondered why a man who has killed his co-pilot, cabin crew and passengers flies on for 6 or 7 hours for a belated suicide. Usually people just get on with it.

--- End quote ---
It's not really possible to kill everyone that way, at least not quickly. The oxygen masks will drop, so everyone will be fine until the oxygen supply runs out. Then, the cabin crew have additional oxygen cylinders they can breathe from, I think those last for hours.
And the locked out co-pilot will try everything during those hours to try and break into the cockpit...


--- Quote from: eurocentric on May 22, 2023, 04:03:53 AM ---It's an exceedingly long anticipation of his own death, all while dealing with the enormity of what he has done, unless of course he committed suicide early and the plane flew on until it ran out of fuel, stalled and nosedived into the ocean.
--- End quote ---
If it runs out of fuel the plane won't nosedive, it will glide, gradually losing altitude. If one wing runs out of fuel before the other, then it will enter a spiral, but still not a steep one.


--- Quote from: eurocentric on May 22, 2023, 04:03:53 AM ---But set against that there are some claiming it had a piloted landing in the ocean.

--- End quote ---
I don't think it's possible to do a piloted landing in the middle of the night in an unknown place. Even if he used a personal GPS device, he wouldn't know the local QNH so the plane's altitude information would be inaccurate meaning, he won't know how far the ground (water) is, and wouldn't know when to flare.


The gist of the argument for murder-suicide is this: several calls and messages to the cockpit went unanswered. But the plane continued to make turns. So, most probably, someone in the cockpit was making those turns. While theoretically it's possible that the autopilot has been reprogrammed, if you're incapacitated, then won't be able to do that. And if the pilot reprogrammed it before becoming incapacitated, why?

An engine fire is not a big deal. Just turn off the engine, put out the fire (built-in fire supressant system). And then declare an emergency and request to land either in Vietnam or Malaysia.
 A lithium battery fire in the cargo is much worse, but again if that was the case how did the plane continue flying for 7 hours?


As for aliens.. did they break the plane into pieces first? Some luggage washed ashore so the plane must have broken up.


Here's another opinion, I think it's well researched: https://www.quora.com/What-might-have-happened-to-the-people-traveling-in-MH370/answer/Sy-Gunson

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