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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/
Five years ago, the flight vanished into the Indian Ocean. Officials on land know more about why than they dare to say.
There are a lot of technical details in the article that raise some very interesting questions.
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What Really Happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane?
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 18 2019, @01:28AM (15 children)
They're painting him as suicidal, but the scenario they lay out in the article: depressurizing the cabin to kill all the passengers and crew, sounds like a perfect scenario to go back in the cabin, steal something(s) of interest, and then pull a D.B. Cooper.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18 2019, @01:33AM (2 children)
Perhaps, but given that he was surrounded by thousands of miles of open ocean (and the fact that the data strongly supports the idea that he aided the crash rather than the plane just running out of fuel), unless Aquaman, Captain Nemo, or both were in cahoots with him and picked him out of the ocean, it seems unlikely.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 18 2019, @02:35AM (1 child)
That's a tough one, but MacGyver could surely have rigged something up to make that happen, especially with all the time available.
Or, you know, just about anybody with a boat. It is a rough patch of ocean there, but it's not entirely unreasonable to think that a private yacht could have coordinated with him to lead him to the GPS coordinates of the meeting point.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by coolgopher on Tuesday June 18 2019, @04:04AM
Would you be able to get any doors open at cruising altitude though? And would you have gear that would allow you to parachute from that altitude / deal with an unpressurised cabin that might be necessary to even open a door? And did the PIC have the necessary experience?
If the answer is yes, this to me would seem a plausible theory. If there was something being transported on the flight of sensitive political nature, I could see a depressed pilot being bought easier than him turning mass murderer for no gain other than suicide. The plan would have come from someone outside, shortly before the flight itself - on such short notice that he could not do a sim of the full thing, but would've wanted to at least confirmed the key points of the plan in his sim. (Does anyone know when his sim took place?) Of course he would not actually have been paid in the currency he expected, and I would be genuinely surprised if he is actually still alive.
Or for that matter, this may have been a case of blackmail. The lives of MH370 for e.g. the PIC's family. Again, politically motivated due so something (or someone) on that flight.
Just speculation of course.
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Tuesday June 18 2019, @04:00AM (3 children)
Its too easy to blame the MH370 air crew. I think it is just as valid to suspect the consignment of lithium-ion batteries in its cargo hold.
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18 2019, @06:03AM
I'd also blame airlines for having hella expensive assets fly all over creation without continuous GPS position tracking, while most truck fleets are being tracked.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 18 2019, @12:25PM
> Its too easy to blame the MH370 air crew. I think it is just as valid to suspect the consignment of lithium-ion batteries in its cargo hold.
You may think that, but you would be wrong.
While a Li-ion battery fire could bring down an airliner, it cannot:
All of which there is data to support MH370 doing.
A fire of such sudden and epic proportions that neither the captain nor first officer could make a simple radio call, while simultaneously disabling the transponder and other communication equipment, would have to be an explosion causing the aircraft to immediately break up. That would place the wreckage along the original flight path.
There is radar evidence to show the aircraft deviated - in a controlled fashion - from its original flight path. Wreckage has been found in locations consistent with the deviated flight path. It flew for hours while radio silent. That completely contradicts the idea of a sudden fire / explosion.
The specialized knowledge required to selectively disable only the flight systems related to communication & tracking is not something the average person would have... this strongly, but not conclusively, points the finger at a member of the flight crew.
So while we cannot definitely blame a member of the flight crew, we can rule out a simple fire/explosion from something like Li-ion batteries.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Tuesday June 18 2019, @07:05PM
Those lithium-ion batteries had to be very smart to conduct a U turn of the plane exactly at a blind spot (at least a poorly over-seen one) in the air traffic control systems, take it back over the pilot's home (Penang) and bank it there to give him a last look, then turn it south into an open ocean area with a final controlled turn.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday June 18 2019, @12:31PM (3 children)
Yeah who doesn't fly with a priceless Picasso painting or the Hope Diamond in their carry on luggage.
(Score: 2) by arulatas on Tuesday June 18 2019, @01:08PM
They say it's safer than driving.
----- 10 turns around
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 18 2019, @01:41PM (1 child)
Something worth killing hundreds of people over is likely an item of power, not a possession: political or military information would be top of the list.
Or, perhaps someone on the plane had come into information about the alien invasion and had to be silenced...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday June 18 2019, @07:50PM
... killing hundreds of Chinese citizens to terrify the remaining Chinese citizens ... Wasn't it the anniversary of Tiananmen Square recently?
(Score: 1) by LAV8.ORg on Tuesday June 18 2019, @05:59PM (1 child)
Whether it was suicide or an improbable heist+mass murder by the PIC, the implications are effectively the same, as far as preventing future reoccurrence. In the broad view, admitting a pilot may become adversarial is opening Pandora's box, but with regard to the article's presented theory of MH370 specifically there's a reasonably sized set of problems to address. In particular, locking out a pilot, or crew in the case of forceful incapacitation, shouldn't be possible; that would apparently require a secondary power supply for the door that is uninterruptible from within the cockpit. Seems there should be a "rogue pilot" kit in the cabin with an oxygen supply, stun gun, and restraints, maybe a battery for the cockpit door. Allowing manual depressurization to be sustained at an altitude where the cabin masks are useless is rather questionable.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 18 2019, @07:45PM
Not at all, the psychological profiles are entirely different.
Yeah, and maybe since that one guy put explosives in his shoe, one time, we should all take our shoes off at TSA for the next 50 years.
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(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Tuesday June 18 2019, @07:45PM (1 child)
How about "Chinese government wants to terrify people away from traveling outside the country, so finds a pilot on a useful route with debts/problems/mental-issues to suborn into a dramatic suicide"?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday June 18 2019, @08:15PM
Seems like a SAM launched by Chinese agents from an unsuspecting country targeting whichever flight would be more terrifying than a mystery ship disappearing, but, gotta admit, the mystery ship did get more attention than your typical SAM strike.
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