Malaysian Airlines flight possibly lost.

Airliners are more capable of hard maneuvers than most people think. It just isn't often seen because it's not permitted to do that with passengers on board.

Cutlass said:

Airliners are more capable of hard maneuvers than most people think. It just isn't often seen because it's not permitted to do that with passengers on board.

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Yeah, but CNN was at one time reporting it dropped 40,000 feet in one minute, which the experts was saying was inconceivable, unless it nose dived and couldn't be replicated on the simulator (iirc)

From an aviation guy on Forbes:

at 45,000 feet, the passengers would likely feel the same cabin pressure as at normal cruise altitude. There is no reason to believe that supplemental oxygen would have been required. Or that passengers would not have been able to survive, if in fact the aircraft did climb to 45,000 feet.

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngog...ngers-have-survived-777-ascent-to-45000-feet/

He also doesn't even believe reports that the airplane went 45,000 and cites the accuracy issue.

Cutlass said:

No, you can't sell the plane. There's only 1200 of them in the world. If another appears, everyone would know it. So there's no place you can use it. And if you even survived landing it on an unpaved surface, there's no way at all to get it back into the air. Odds are the landing gear would fail before you slowed down, and it would look more like that Korean crash at San Fransisco last year.

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You couldn't sell it as a whole plane, but you could break it down and sell off the parts and electronics for a pretty hefty sum.

Commodore said:

You couldn't sell it as a whole plane, but you could break it down and sell off the parts and electronics for a pretty hefty sum.

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What you would get, for the risk you took, wouldn't I think be worth it. Most of the parts are specialized. And couldn't appear on the market without people knowing about it. The engines, for example, are uniquely identified. If they ever showed up an another plane that was being serviced, it would be impossible to hide their origin.

Cutlass said:

What you would get, for the risk you took, wouldn't I think be worth it. Most of the parts are specialized. And couldn't appear on the market without people knowing about it. The engines, for example, are uniquely identified. If they ever showed up an another plane that was being serviced, it would be impossible to hide their origin.

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And in all likelihood you are right. I was just saying that it is a possibility. Plus, people tend to not think through the risk/reward factor of things when they are desperate for money. If this was an attempt at stealing and selling the plane, those responsible may not have thought about the issues you have brought up.

Either way, I really don't think terrorism had anything to do with this incident. Failed hijacking or not, terrorists love to claim responsibility for the acts they commit and so far no group has claimed responsibility for bringing down this plane. I have a feeling that if the details of what happened ever do come to light, it is going to be one of the stranger tales we will have heard in a long time.

Commodore said:

Either way, I really don't think terrorism had anything to do with this incident. Failed hijacking or not, terrorists love to claim responsibility for the acts they commit and so far no group has claimed responsibility for bringing down this plane.

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I don't know if that's true. OBL didn't publicly take responsibility for 9/11 until 2004 and I don't think Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for 7/7 until September.

Commodore said:

... people tend to not think through the risk/reward factor of things when they are desperate for money.

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People who are desperate for money rob or mug. The level of sophistication necessary to hijack a plane like this requires assets and money to accomplish. Mere profit is an unlikely motive.

Somehow I think this is turning out to be the mystery of the generation.

Yeah there's no way this was for profit. Nobody ever hijacked a big plane for profit (that I'm aware anyway). Pretty much any other criminal enterprise is easier.

That's funny, I could have sworn I saw a 777 for sale earlier on silk road for 500,000 btc.

If it could have gotten into an isolated area a low tech runway could have handled the landing. Modern runways use concrete to allow thousands of planes to land for years. Crushed gravel with a prime coat could handle a single landing and after repair it could allow for take off. It would not be that much harder to produce cement treated base that would be much stronger.

Depending on the terrain you'd only need a few dozers, graders, water trucks, rollers, trucks, loader, portable crusher and pugmill. On the scale of things not that much, nothing that a midsize third world construction company would not have.

Once you had it on the ground you could refuel and load it with explosives. make the world's biggest cruise missile. Imagine if on 9/11 instead of just the jet fuel and kinetic impact, you also had 20+ tons of explosives.

If someone was proficient enough to plan and execute an operation of this scale they probably are competent enough to hide the plane once it was on the ground. A year from now a mystery 777 flies on a known flight path towards whatever target they had in mind.

With the reinforced cabin doors on planes nowadays I don't see the passengers pulling off a flight 93 type situation. I don't think they could get the doors open.

Commodore said:

You couldn't sell it as a whole plane, but you could break it down and sell off the parts and electronics for a pretty hefty sum.

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Everything bar the nuts, bolts and rivets (and even some of them) are serialised for identification purposes, and in general without the authenticating paperwork aircraft parts are worth nothing more than scrap.
There is a market for 'bogus parts' (which includes anything that cannot be traced), but considering the situation no-ones going to touch anything like this with a barge pole.

KmDubya said:

Once you had it on the ground you could refuel and load it with explosives. make the world's biggest cruise missile. Imagine if on 9/11 instead of just the jet fuel and kinetic impact, you also had 20+ tons of explosives.

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A big cruise missile thats extremely easy to shoot down, and as the aircraft has gone missing suddenly re-appearing with or without the transponder on would instantly draw a lot of attention.

KmDubya said:

With the reinforced cabin doors on planes nowadays I don't see the passengers pulling off a flight 93 type situation. I don't think they could get the doors open.

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They could certainly destroy much of the rest of the plane.

Cutlass said:

Spoiler Too soon? :

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Although a 777 would surely go for more than a miserable 15 million dollars.. Even in a black-market

(This site1 claims it would cost a bit over 200 million, normally).

some people say that the plane was hijacked by the US because of some intelligence issues.I highly doubt the credibility

The captain was apparently a supporter of the opposition leader jailed for homosexuality.

ı think it was the Malaysian Acting Minister for Transportation who said that 25 countries were acting in concert and that was great diplomatic power . Guaranteed heartburn on anyone who bets on America winning .

as inspired by the episode of Leverage , the TV series , which coincidentally aired in Turkey this week ; D.B. Cooper says hi .

and this latest thing will not hold either . Yeah , it makes great sense for the plane to get into "well defended" India and beyond if it's to 911 some high rise , but ı had always imagined it would have gone not West . Anybody has idea on WW2 B-24 fields with recent shipments of pierced steel planking ?

and not a discussion of who did what but the repetation was supposed to make a dig at this Islamism that regularly gets surprised by the uncooperating-West-once-the-deed-is-done .

I find the fact that in the day and age where every 200€ cellphone has a GPS, a 300 million $ plane does not have a tracking device that can't be turned off, totally incomprehensible...