Missing airplane (Boeing 777)

A Boeing 777 passenger airliner has seemingly completely vanished. It went off grid over the South China Sea on Friday evening (uk time) and hasn't been seen or heard from since. 

The most likely explanation is that it has crashed into the sea and sunk but there is some confusion over why there has been no distress call and why it took air traffic control over 6 hours to properly raise the alarm after it went missing. 

One pilot admitted he was "puzzled" why authorities had not divulged a more accurate location of where the aircraft went missing.

What do you think of this story, and - how would you feel if your own family were missing without a trace?

I blame Putin.

Let's go to war!

Microsoft / Treyarch will love it and will make a fortune.

Just watched Captain Philllips on Blu Ray tonight, and realised that the whole third act was the basis for COD Black Ops 12 or whatever the last game was,(or was it Battlefield 27 - I can't remember?) where you're a Navy SEAL and you have to shoot the Somali pirates in the head and save the 'Murican captain.

They're tapping your phone, you know.........

You can't do a silent fart nowadays.

Without it being on CCTV.

Fucking Technology.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia —Vietnamese air force planes spotted two large oil slicks Saturday in the region where a Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappeared, the first sign that the Boeing 777 with 239 people aboard had crashed.

The air force planes were part of a multinational search operation launched after Flight MH370 fell off radar screens less than an hour after taking off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing.

WHY THE MALAYSIA AIRLINES JET MIGHT HAVE DISAPPEARED

The most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Rarely do incidents happen when a plane is cruising seven miles above the earth.

So the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet well into its flight Saturday morning over the South China Sea has led aviation experts to assume that whatever happened was quick and left the pilots no time to place a distress call.

It could take investigators months, if not years, to determine what happened to the Boeing 777 flying from Malaysia’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Some possibilities include structural failure, bad weather, engine failure or a criminal act.

The oil slicks sighted off the southern tip of Vietnam were each between 10 kilometers and 15 kilometers long, the Vietnamese government said in a statement.

There was no immediate confirmation that the slicks were related to the missing plane, but the government said they were consistent with the kind of slick that would be produced by the two fuel tanks of a crashed jetliner.

After the oil was spotted, the air search was suspended for the night and was to resume Sunday morning. A sea search continued, the airline said.

The jet was believed to be flying at cruising altitude when it vanished.

Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said there was no indication the pilots had sent a distress signal, suggesting that whatever trouble befell the plane happened quickly, perhaps in a sudden catastrophe.

The plane was last inspected 10 days ago and was “in proper condition,” Ignatius Ong, CEO of Malaysia Airlines subsidiary Firefly airlines, said at a news conference.

Two-thirds of the jet’s passengers were from China. The rest were from elsewhere in Asia, North America and Europe.

The flight manifest identifies two Canadians as Xiaomo Bai, 37, and Muktesh Mukherjee, 42.


An airline spokeswoman says company officials are not able to get in touch with their families but have contacted the Canadian embassy in Malaysia.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper tweeted his condolences over the missing plane.

“Our thoughts & deepest prayers are with those affected by the disappearance of the plane in Malaysia,” Harper said.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03/07/malaysia-airlines-loses-contact-with-flight-mh370-carrying-239-people-from-kuala-lumpur-to-beijing/

Banksy,

Stop playing with yer spuds.

I can see it and it's putting me off my beer.

Cheers.

Now's not the time to post a serious comment about this, cos I've been on the ale and people have died but it's very odd that a commercial airliner has just "downed" without an obvious cause.

As we all know,they're safer than cars generally.

Just shows......

Seems there were a couple of people flying on stolen passports.

It sounds as if the plane has suddenly exploded in mid flight. The cynic in me would probably point the finger at one of any number of  groups of fundamentalists with some form of grievance.

Reebok Trotter wrote:It sounds as if the plane has suddenly exploded in mid flight. The cynic in me would probably point the finger at one of any number of  groups of fundamentalists with some form of grievance.

I would have thought more of a component failure.

I read in the DM that the same aircraft was in an accident (not sure how long ago) on the runway where one of the wings collided and the end broke.

Possibly the repair wasn't good enough?

According to the news the flight manifest has revealed that two passengers were travelling on false passports. I could be wrong but it tend to point towards foul play. If it was an engine failure one would expect some communication from the pilot recording the incident but in this case there was no communication which indicates an explosion without warning.

I could be wrong but that is where I would be placing my bet.

Is it clear if the Pilot issued any distress call?

He would have done if a technical issue occurred, how often do technical failures lead to a complete explosion of the craft? Genuine question, don't know.

According to news reports no distress call was issued. Hence my view it was sabotage.

I think the only things they are going off are 2 oil slicks, there was news about 2 people being on board with fake passports but that could have been just to get into a country they were banned from entering.

They have not managed to recover any of the aircraft yet?

The experts say that for the plane not to have sent out some sort of distress call that something immeadiate and catastrophic happened to the plane.

The Air France plane that crashed a few years back basically flew into the sea because of pilot error.

Even if the wing fell off it would still give the crew time to send a message.

As for the two people with false passports -

When an Air India plane crashed in Mangalore in 2010 en route from Dubai, with the loss of 158 lives, as many 10 fraudulent passports were recovered.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26503141

So much for passport control in Islamic countrys!

The Air France crash was found to have faulty dials no?

Sluffy wrote:The experts say that for the plane not to have sent out some sort of distress call that something immeadiate and catastrophic happened to the plane.

The Air France plane that crashed a few years back basically flew into the sea because of pilot error.

Even if the wing fell off it would still give the crew time to send a message.

I remember it well. The tragedy was caused by frozen ice which caused their instruments to malfunction by giving a false reading. The French pilots did issue a Mayday but it was to no avail.

Reebok Trotter wrote:
I remember it well. The tragedy was caused by frozen ice which caused their instruments to malfunction by giving a false reading. The French pilots did issue a Mayday but it was to no avail.

That was it!

Sorry but it wasn't.

Yes the plane did have instrument failure that did lead to how the crew reacted which in turn made the situation very much worse but even at that point the plane did not have to crash.

The problem was they failed to respond to warnings that the plane was going to stall and did not take the right actions when it eventually did.

Sad story and a very tragic and fatal one.

No mayday message was sent.

http://www.bea.aero/docspa/2009/f-cp090601.en/pdf/f-cp090601.en.pdf

Sluffy wrote:The experts say that for the plane not to have sent out some sort of distress call that something immeadiate and catastrophic happened to the plane.

The Air France plane that crashed a few years back basically flew into the sea because of pilot error.

Even if the wing fell off it would still give the crew time to send a message.

As for the two people with false passports -

When an Air India plane crashed in Mangalore in 2010 en route from Dubai, with the loss of 158 lives, as many 10 fraudulent passports were recovered.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26503141

So much for passport control in Islamic countrys!

I don't think you can really blame Malaysia as a Muslim country. Its very tolerant of other religions- there is a large Chinese citizenship who practice a variety of religions- Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism and others  as well as a large Indian contingent who practice a variety of religions.
Of all the Muslim countries its by far the most tolerant  and multicultural.
If it was terrorism then it can't be blamed on anything Malaysian

How do they know 2 people on the plane have false passports?