http://www.cbsnews.com/news/malaysi...th-plane-en-route-to-beijing-with-239-aboard/ http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-aircraft-goes-missing--says-airline-023820132.html All 239 feared dead.. The airliner is a Boeing 777-200 an airliner with a very good reputation for safety and reliability.. ELT transmissions have been received by the Vietnamese air traffic authority and military search and rescue is on the way...
Terrible news indeed There is a big search operation going on, including ships and planes from Malaysia, Vietnam, China and the Philippines. Something terrible must have gone wrong, the weather seemed to be fine at the time of the disappearance, so I doubt that is the cause for this.
As someone who works in the aviation industry, I am shocked by this accident as Malaysian Airlines has a very good safety record which is even better than Air France. This accident is a shocker in the aviation industry.
Apparently two of the passengers were traveling on stolen passports, so the Malaysian government doesn't want to rule out this being a terrorist act... (http://www.latimes.com/world/worldn...rlines-20140308,0,3587352.story#axzz2vO7FEZyS) but it could as well be an accident. 19 months ago, the plane had an accident on the ground, damaging the wing (http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=147571)
But even if the repaired wing had a problem it wouldn't have caused a loss of aircraft in such a manner (though it would have caused some difficulties to be sure). What is most puzzling is the manner in which the aircraft disappeared. Not mayday call or anything. Even if the engines stopped turning there's batteries and ram air turbines to provide power for communications etc to get a call out. So it's leading to speculation that the aircraft broke up at cruise altitude and other than acts of terrorism I don't think that's been an issue for many years.
It's still very early for speculation like that. Air France 447 in 2009 was similar to begin with, just "disappearing" over water. It turned out there were some automated messages sent, but that was not reported for several days.
Wasn't there some plumes that remained aloft from that part of the world recently? Not all volcanoes are as well measured Mount Sinabung in Sumatra seems suspect: "On 07 March 2014, an eruption resulted in an ash plume extending west and reaching a height of 4 km" http://www.weather.gov.sg/wip/pp/volcanic.html
Thoug if the aircraft flew through one of thsoe and it caused the engines to fail there would still be time to put out a mayday call. There was an incident with a British Airways 747 back in 1980 or thereabouts when volcanic ash caused all four engines to shutdown but they were able to get them restarted.
After a thorough search of my home, I can confidently report that the missing airliner is definitely not here. I've done my part.
More details about the stolen passports. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/authoritie...ul-play-missing-passport-claim-152800254.html MH 370 Passenger list as provided by Malaysia Airlines http://sg.news.yahoo.com/mh-370-passenger-list-as-provided-by-malaysia-airlines-151737575.html
The Malaysias transport and defense minister Hishamuddin Hussein, has reported that four passengers used fake IDs, and they all booked tickets through China Southern Airways. (However this doesn't prove it was terror). The FBI is now assisting in the investigation, and an American destroyer, USS Pinckney is sent to help with the search. (Only have Norwegian URLS) http://www.tv2.no/2014/03/09/nyheter/utenriks/5392658#.UxwW3-IpL3A http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/kina/artikkel.php?artid=10145835 http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10145895
Interesting developments being reported by the LA times. http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-79568792/
There is a report this morning that radar indicates the plane may have turned around just before it disappeared. link That article also addresses the stolen passports. At first I thought that was a good sign this was a terrorist act, but this article points out that with the number of stolen and lost passports in the database, any flight of that size in Asia will likely have a couple of passengers using stolen documents.