News Contact lost with 777-200ER of Malaysia Airlines

[Urwumpe]

It seems that in this case Zaharie Shah seems to have had no such plans on landing in Beijing and even beyond that has zero plans, social or otherwise. Add to this his strong political ties and it does start to raise some flags.

I think it is more the typical Malaysian "We have no clue, but we have to say something to look good" that we had a lot of lately.

Remember the information about the captain that we had some hours after the plane disappeared? That he was a fanatic pilot, loving his job and his aircraft, that he not only build this simulator, but also had a big interest in aircraft that he shared with others? Being proud of being part of an elite?

Now, he is suddenly a nutjob to the officials, somebody who had dire problems, was politically unreliable - despite the protests of his friends and coworkers.

That the copilot was pretty much the opposite to his captain - thats completely forgotten there.

I don't trust the Malaysian Officials there at all. I think they are the biggest nutjobs in the whole investigation.

 

[garyw]

Now, he is suddenly a nutjob to the officials, somebody who had dire problems, was politically unreliable - despite the protests of his friends and coworkers.

This is a very good point. In the case of Gameel Al-Batouti, it was acknowledged by his colleagues that he had a few issues and it was even caught on the CVR.

In the case of Zaharie Shah his colleagues have consistently identified him as a very good pilot and a stable person. It may well be that he had political interests but none of his colleagues have mentioned that so chances are, it wasn't something he forced on them but was instead simply a part of his life outside of aviation.

I agree that the Malaysians are desperate to be seen to be doing something and pilot error/suicide is the easiest thing to blame here.

 

[Urwumpe]

I know I now scrape a lot on the basement territory, so I will keep it short and hope nobody will discuss it long here:

The discussion about the directory contents about his simulator system shows a lot about the NSA debate in a very small example:

Something very harmless that many of us have on our HDD is enough to declare you a highly suspicious person, when the pressure on the investigating agency is high enough and the agency completely clueless.

And still, following such leads by the investigation only creates much more noise to signal, and makes it nearly impossible to find the real culprit, because it gets impossible to tell real evidence and false evidence, created by uncontrolled assumptions, apart.

OK, thats all I want to say here about it (the basement is much better for the bigger picture). It is a common pattern today in our world, and this investigation shows well, how such unscientific conduct in an investigation will never lead to the truth at all.

 

[Castor]

Evidence of tampering with cockpit equipment:

Investigators probing the disappearance of Flight MH370 have discovered possible new evidence of tampering with the plane’s cockpit equipment which experts believe could be part of an attempt to avoid radar detection, according to a media report.

A report released by Australian air crash investigators shows that the missing Boeing 777 suffered a mysterious power outage during the early stages of its flight.The plane’s satellite data unit made an unexpected “log-on” request to a satellite less than 90 minutes into its flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
The log-on request — known as a “handshake” — appears likely to have been caused by an interruption of electrical power on board the plane, which experts believe could be part of an attempt to avoid radar detection.

“A log-on request in the middle of a flight is not common,” the report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said.“An analysis was performed which determined that the characteristics and timing of the logon requests were best matched as resulting from power interruption,” the report was quoted by the British daily as saying. David Gleave, an aviation safety expert from Loughborough University, said the interruption to the power supply appeared to be the result of someone in the cockpit attempting to minimise the use of the aircraft’s systems. The action, he said, was consistent with an attempt to turn the plane’s communications and other systems off in an attempt to avoid radar detection. “A person could be messing around in the cockpit which would lead to a power interruption,” he was quoted as saying.
“It could be a deliberate act to switch off both engines for some time. By messing about within the cockpit you could switch off the power temporarily and switch it on again when you need the other systems to fly the plane” Gleave said.

Inmarsat, the company that officially analysed flight data from MH370, has confirmed the assessment but says it does not know why the aircraft experienced a power failure.
“It does appear there was a power failure on those two occasions,” said Chris McLaughlin, from Inmarsat.
“It is another little mystery. We cannot explain it. We don’t know why. We just know it did it,” he said.

 

[Andy44]

"no social or work plans"

Reminds me of that report that people with no facebook accounts may be psychopaths.

When you need a scapegoat, you look for the people who don't quite fit in with us "normal" folk.

Also, every theory so far has been a dead end, so I wouldn't put much faith in this one, either.

 

[Matias Saibene]

I know I now scrape a lot on the basement territory, so I will keep it short and hope nobody will discuss it long here:

The discussion about the directory contents about his simulator system shows a lot about the NSA debate in a very small example:

Something very harmless that many of us have on our HDD is enough to declare you a highly suspicious person, when the pressure on the investigating agency is high enough and the agency completely clueless.

And still, following such leads by the investigation only creates much more noise to signal, and makes it nearly impossible to find the real culprit, because it gets impossible to tell real evidence and false evidence, created by uncontrolled assumptions, apart.

OK, thats all I want to say here about it (the basement is much better for the bigger picture). It is a common pattern today in our world, and this investigation shows well, how such unscientific conduct in an investigation will never lead to the truth at all.

Imagine if researchers see my terrible flight in Orbiter, would probably consider me a suspect.

This mystery reminds me of the disaster with the trains in my country in 2012, research did not much affect those responsible for manage the trains.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Buenos_Aires_rail_disaster"]2012 Buenos Aires rail disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

 

[garyw]

"no social or work plans"

Reminds me of that report that people with no facebook accounts may be psychopaths.

Sure but in this case I think it goes a bit further than that in that the captain literally had no plans at all, not even any annual leave booked.

When you need a scapegoat, you look for the people who don't quite fit in with us "normal" folk.

Also, every theory so far has been a dead end, so I wouldn't put much faith in this one, either.

Its also pointless because we know something happened around the 90 minute mark, that's the time of the handover between ATC centres and the time that the transponder was turned off. This handshake just confirms what we already know, whoever/wahtever did this, did it around 90 minutes into the flight.

Turning of the engines makes no sense if radar is correct in saying that the plane then climbed to 45,000ft. http://www.express.co.uk/news/world...ked-out-at-45-000ft-in-pilot-s-suicide-plunge

 

[Urwumpe]

Sure but in this case I think it goes a bit further than that in that the captain literally had no plans at all, not even any annual leave booked.

That is again no indication for anything, because it can have many causes. Including that the human resources department of that airline is very malaysian and simply failed to properly book the annual leave and will correct this when the employee is suddenly gone.

It could also be because his leave had simply been refused by his superiors, which could cause some really strong reactions.

 

[garyw]

Agreed, although my assumption here is that the investors checked for any leave requests and found none. Of course, it's all highly circumstantial.

 

[Urwumpe]

Agreed, although my assumption here is that the investors checked for any leave requests and found none. Of course, it's all highly circumstantial.

Its more than that, its destructive. Especially because these "suspicions" are discussed in public. Somebody is turned by fear, uncertainty and doubt into a high-class nutjob and my primary question there is: What is the motivation for discrediting a person in that way? What drives the people that not only seek for such "indications of unreliability" but also publish them to the world?

I think it would be overdue to also look with similar eyes at the people who investigate the accident.

I feel strongly reminded on Captain Joseph Hazlewood there: "The true story is out there for anybody who wants to look at the facts, but that's not the sexy story and that's not the easy story."

 

[Evil_Onyx]

What is the motivation for discrediting a person in that way?

I think of two off the top of my head.

To move public blame away from the airline and manufacturer, there is a history of mechanical/ maintenance problems getting blamed as pilot error to save the public image of a airline.

Money. If it is found to be a problem with the aircraft or maintenance issue it could get expensive for the group blamed.

 

[garyw]

You missed one. The pilot can't defend himself.

 

[Melvin]

there is a history of mechanical/ maintenance problems getting blamed as pilot error to save the public image of a airline.

You have solid evidence of this "history" of coverups, or is this conspiracy and speculation?

 

[garyw]

You have solid evidence of this "history" of coverups, or is this conspiracy and speculation?

Silk Air 185.

TWA 841.

They are two that come to mind straight away.

 

[Evil_Onyx]

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Scotland_RAF_Chinook_crash"]1994 Scotland RAF Chinook crash[/ame]

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Air_Disaster"]British European Airways flight 609[/ame]

garyw's wiki articles for [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185"]Silk Air 185.[/ame] TWA 841 (1979)

There are others where the flight crew of accident aircraft have been blamed but i would take a long time to find them all, as most have taken years for it to be sorted out.

 

[Melvin]

After reading through those, I do believe the RAF Chinook crash was an awful coverup of negligent homicide on the part of whoever withheld the critical information from the flight crew, and not the fault of the flight crew.

BEA Flt609 was not a mechanical failure, but rather a build up of too much slush on the runway. I believe that the pilot, who was eventually exonerated of any wrong doing, should have recognized the fact that takeoff speeds weren't being reached in time and should have aborted takeoff earlier. This stands for the flight crew as a whole.

Silk Air 185... why was the CVR manually disabled just before the aircraft crashed? I'm having a hard time believing that a scanning electron microscope is required to find a defect in a redundant hydraulic system that would have been responsible for the crash. Keep in mind that the LA court wasn't allowed to hear the NTSB testimony during their trial. Sounds to me like some ambulance chasers looking to make a quick buck.

TWA 841... Again there is blatant tampering with the CVR from the flight crew. They had the aircraft configured improperly and it caused a serious issue.



So yeah... A coverup to save the reputation of the airline (in this case The Royal Airforce) is surely a possibility. I guess one instance passes for plausibility these days.




I hope that some folks are thinking that maybe IMARSAT was wrong about their data. I believe the aircraft went North/Northwest.

 

[mojoey]

BEA Flt609 was not a mechanical failure, but rather a build up of too much slush on the runway. I believe that the pilot, who was eventually exonerated of any wrong doing, should have recognized the fact that takeoff speeds weren't being reached in time and should have aborted takeoff earlier. This stands for the flight crew as a whole.

Really? Even if they had recognized the problem in time, the slush on the runway would have made it A) extremely difficult or B) impossible for them to stop before sliding off the end of the runway.

 

[Melvin]

Yes really.

Bad weather takeoffs and landings take place all the time on both improved and unimproved strips. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the flight crew to recognize and avoid safety issues.

I am of the opinion that the flight crew failed in this event.

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes really.

Bad weather takeoffs and landings take place all the time on both improved and unimproved strips. Ultimately it is the responsibility of the flight crew to recognize and avoid safety issues.

I am of the opinion that the flight crew failed in this event.

Not automatically. If they base their decision on wrong inputs by other instances, it is not their failure. For example a bad weather report, a bad reporting of runway conditions by the airport, etc. Could the crew have noticed that something was awefully wrong, they are responsible. Could they not have had this chance, or would have needed to be more or less lucky to see the symptoms of the coming problems, its not their sole failure.

Also for landing, you have not always the option to choose a better airport.

 

[Melvin]

Read the wiki on the crash Urwumpe. The Captain had the option of overnighting and trying takeoff in the morning. It was his decision to attempt a takeoff in winter weather conditions. It was also his decision to open the throttles at a slower rate in order to prevent boost surging as opposed to holding the plane like the station engineer suggested.

The whole event was a catastrophic domino effect set in motion by the flight crew and their unwillingness to stay over night.

Now I think we can remove this one from the grand "history" of airline coverups.