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[Paphitis]

Mr. Chris Goodfellow is making way too many assumptions, and since there are no evidence to what exactly has happened to flight MH370, then his is as good as anyone else’s at this point in time, despite having few holes in his assumptions.

I hope Paphitis can correct me if I'm off track here.

Chris Goodfellow is focusing on the nose gear tyre burning on takeoff. It was a night takeoff, so you would think if the tyre got a flat and heated up due to friction and caught fire, others on the ground would have seen something. They did not.

The pilots would have felt the vibration if one or both the nose gear tyres were gone flat as well as indicators showing the tyre(s) were flat, which if it was at a point of no return for the take off, the captain would have told the tower and ask to return back to the airport after dumping some fuel to reduce the weight for landing. He did not.

Anything like a vibration would result in a rejected Take Off before V1 = point of no return. At Kuala Lumpur, V1 equals Vr (rotate) with 239 passengers on board - a light load for a B777. Therefore, they could reject the Take Off at any point up to Vr (rotate). If there was a problem airborne, then the first choice is to dump fuel and land back at Kuala Lumpur. The Runways at KL are 4kms long.

You would not continue with electrical unserviceabilities and no comms.

But lets assume the pilots did feel the vibrations and the indicators showed that the tyre(s) were blown and continued the flight as normal, despite the tyre might be on fire, however unlikely that might be for them to fly to Beijing for another 6-7 hours just so not to dump and waste good fuel. As far as I know, the landing gear compartments are not pressurized, which means it gets freezing cold in there, hence people who try to stow away in landing gear compartments turn into popsicles upon arrival at temperatures minus 50+°C. So if it's not pressurized, then the landing gear compartment is sealed off to the rest of the aircraft, not unless the tyre fire has burned a hole through and smoke has gone into the cockpit as well as the whole aircraft, which means that the whole aircraft has also lost pressure. Why does he assume smoke ONLY found itself into the cockpit and nowhere else?

To have a fire you need three things, Fuel, Oxygen and Heat. At minus 50°C in a closed compartment, I don't think any fire can stay alight, not to mention it will be very hard for any Oxygen from outside to get into the closed gear compartment, so the fire would die out soon after take off and killed for good once the temperatures drop to freezing within minutes after takeoff.

Lets assume smoke is coming into the cockpit and the captain has decided to land at a different airport without telling anyone on the ground how ever unlikely that may be. You think he would have at least told the rest of the crew and his passengers for them to prepare an emergency landing. Don't you think some people would start using their phones to try and call their love ones? Chris Goodfellow also assumes that the captain or the co-pilot is no way involved in any foul play. How can he be so sure?

I still stand by my feelings that this aircraft has not crashed, but it safely landed somewhere. For what purpose is what I don't know.....yet.

The Electrical Nav Compartment is located underneath the cockpit. There is a small access panel just behind the Pilots. If there was a fire there, one of the pilots can extinguish it. The pilots would turn off most of the Electronics, but not before Sqawking 7700 and making a Distress Radio Call.

Aviate, Navigate and Communicate is true in that order but also a bit of a cliche they would over use in training, but turning off the Transponder and not making any radio calls is crazy. It's like turning off your eyes and ears.

Landing elsewhere also sounds far fetched. Where on earth can you hide a B777 when the whole worlds Satellites are looking for it?

[Demonax]

If you want to help find the missing plane by scanning satellite images you can look here:

http://www.tomnod.com/nod/

Good luck!

[Paphitis]

The Australian and US Governments have just announced that they will be releasing some very sensitive satellite Imagery in the coming days from Pine Gap, and also some information from the secretive JORN.

Apparently, images covering the entire search area will be released to Malaysia and maybe made public (but don't hold your breath on that one!)

I am really certain that Australia and the US will be guarding their technologies closely after the Snowdon debacle. Basically they don't want to be telling the world that they can spy on anything and anyone, including mobile phones and emails ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Gap

[Pyrpolizer]

Adding to Kikapu's suspicion that the whole thing smells huge money involved, how about the possibility that the whole story of "they can't find it" has to do with the huge costs involved for insurance companies, and possibly against Boeing itself?

[Kikapu]

Chris Goodfellow also assumes that the captain or the co-pilot is no way involved in any foul play. How can he be so sure?

I still stand by my feelings that this aircraft has not crashed, but it safely landed somewhere. For what purpose is what I don't know.....yet.

What evidence do you have that foul play was involved? After a week no group has claimed responsibility for any alleged hijack. No ransom demand has been made. And the evidence about the pilot's mental state is just speculation. It has led nowhere.

I don't have any evidence of foul play, just as we don't have any evidence of any dead bodies, nor crashed plane parts.

Don't wait for any ransom. If the plane is hijacked and hidden, it is being done for a greater purpose than getting ransom money.

The pilot(s) does not need to be mental nutcases in order to hijack the plane. In fact, I would expect them to be very smart to be part of a great plan.

Instead you're assuming, like out of some James Bond film, that a huge plane with hundreds of passengers on board has managed to land without being seen and is being hidden in some remote location by master criminals pending what exactly? It makes no sense. You might as well say that the plane was abducted by aliens.

I'm sure if someone gave you the 9/11 scenario on 9/10, you would have said the same thing, like all of us would have, that he was watching too much James Bond, right? 9/11 was a well-planned and well-executed terrorist operation. No one can deny that, because it was a masterpiece. Who is to say another masterpiece to be performed is not at work here and part of the plan was to steal a very large aircraft. I can think of few things the terrorist would want to do with this aircraft. Actually, I will put those thoughts on here soon. Trust me, it will have all the James Bond affects, just as 9/11 did.

Of all the theories I've read the only one that fits with what we know is the theory of an onboard electrical fire that incapacitated the crew and the plane's systems. The plane eventually ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean.

If you want to play it safe as to what may have happened, then this would be a good explanation, despite not making any sense as I have stated to you yesterday.

I'd be amazed if the plane suddenly turns up. However comforting that thought is.

Lets just wait and see what happens.

[Kikapu]

Landing elsewhere also sounds far fetched. Where on earth can you hide a B777 when the whole worlds Satellites are looking for it?

We are all assuming of course, that if the plane was hijacked and landed somewhere remote and hidden in some large hanger, that no one knows where it is. If they knew, they sure are not going to tell us when there are lives at stake here.

Lets assume the major countries involved in finding this plane actually know where the aircraft and passengers are. Will they announce it? No they wouldn't when they would be planning a major rescue operation. As a matter of fact, a story by Chris Goodfellow as to what may have happened to the plane is what I would expect the authorities to put out to put the minds of the hijackers at ease, that no one knows where they are.

[kurupetos]

i don't think Iran would take such a risk. The peculiar thing is that passengers phones were still on days after the plane went missing.

Why not? I bet my Iranian colleagues have converted it into a nuclear bomb by now.

[Pyrpolizer]

Just name one country where the military radars would spot an unidentified airplane crossing their country and not signal red alarm.
Or are the Malaysians simply lying to cover their total incompetence?

[kurupetos]

Just name one country where the military radars would spot an unidentified airplane crossing their country and not signal red alarm.
Or are the Malaysians simply lying to cover their total incompetence?

Stop making a fool of yourself and read this: http://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-el-al-e ... in-mh-370/

[Demonax]

Here is why the smoke-in-the-cockpit theory might not stand up according to a former 777 pilot...

As a former B777 pilot, I find the "plausible" theory you published is not in line with the facts as they have been reported. I am a professional pilot with type ratings in the DC-9 (MD88, MD90), B757, 767 and 777 and I served as a Captain at a major US international airline. I feel I have some insight to add to the discussion about MH370.

First off, the idea that a wheel-well fire could have burned unnoticed for over an hour after takeoff is not plausible. The B777 has wheel-well overheat/fire-detection systems that would have sounded an alarm for the cockpit crew soon after takeoff, were that an issue. Additionally, the cockpit is equipped with full-face O2 masks that provide a safe breathing atmosphere to every pilot. At the first sign of ANY smoke, the pilots are trained to drop everything and immediately, without hesitation, don those rapid-don masks that are designed to be easily donned with one hand and immediately secure themselves to the face. After that, the Captain will delegate duties ... one pilot flies the plane and handles communications, while the other works the problem, using checklists designed to narrow the issue down and address it.

While the pilot working the problem is busy, the pilot flying will turn the aircraft toward the nearest appropriate airport, begin a descent, and communicate with ATC and/or any airplanes in the area. While it is true that the checklists may, in the event of an electrical fire, have the pilots de-power certain systems or circuits, these steps are down the list; the pilots would have already declared the emergency and turned toward the nearest appropriate airport.

I can think of no plausible reason why the crew never made any attempt to contact ATC during the event, except that whoever was in control of the cockpit did not wish to communicate.

In the case of MH370, a turn was made, but no descent was initiated at that time, nor was any communication with ATC made.

Additionally, the aircraft has been reported to have climbed to FL450, and descended to FL250 later in the flight. If the flight crew had been incapacitated, this could not have occurred.

Finally, a fire that incapacitated everyone onboard would have, in every scenario I can logically come up with, destroyed the aircraft soon thereafter. I reference the Swissair Flight 111, an MD11 that crashed off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Sept. 2, 1998. From the time of initial cockpit indication of smoke until the crew was completely incapacitated was 14 minutes; the aircraft crashed soon thereafter. In this incident, the crew had ample time to communicate with ATC, and was running checklists until the very end. Indeed, the crew elected to stay airborne and continue running checklists while dumping fuel, instead of landing immediately; this decision has been credited with the loss of all passengers and crew, and is exactly why landing immediately is the primary goal in an airborne fire.

For a fire to have been burning from the wheel well for over an hour before detection is not within the realm of realistic possibilities, in my opinion.

http://www.businessinsider.com/malaysia ... z2wRs2Ugeh