Missing Malaysian Airlines B777

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11 years 8 months

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News breaking from Kuala Lumpur, a Malaysian Airlines 777-200 with 239 souls on board is missing over the South China Sea. Flight MH370 bound for Beijing was due to land at 22:30 GMT on Friday (7th March) evening but all communications with the airliner have been lost. A search and rescue mission is currently underway.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26492748

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13 years 3 months

Posts: 87

Sad to say that this is looking like a major disaster. I found this off Twitter, the last known position from Flightradar

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Member for

16 years 7 months

Posts: 242

Oh dear. Very worrying and sad news. SAR operations have begun.
It's mysterious how this incident happened. According to BBC News/CNN.com, the aircraft, a 777-200 was not particularly old at 11+ years, the captain was extremely experienced (joined MAS 1981) and the weather conditions were benign.
Also, apparently no mayday messages were sent/received.
What are the possible causes of a sudden catastrophic incident whilst cruising in good weather with no warning like this?

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13 years 2 months

Posts: 221

1.The aircraft had history of ground collision
2.Can't rule out the possiblity of Terrorist Attack.

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14 years 6 months

Posts: 2,536

Did this happen at night? Flight over the sea at night can be a funny thing. There have been several incidents involving aircraft that flew into the sea and without a distress call.
Also have to consider major structural failure or fuel explosion.
Of course all of this is academic to the families involved.

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13 years 3 months

Posts: 87

Yes, last contact was at around 02.40 local time.

Two fuel slicks have been spotted. The known facts : good weather, no distress call, sudden disappearance.

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10 years 7 months

Posts: 2,748

Some have had a lucky escape...

Separately, it has been reported that two passengers who were listed on the plane's manifest - an Italian and an Austrian - were not actually on the flight but had had their passports stolen in the past two years in Thailand.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26496673

In other words, two of the passengers were on false passports...

Here are the facts so far:
The airplane reached cruising altitude without a squeak.
It was in an area of good coverage of a large number of ADS-B receivers.
It disappeared abruptly.
There was no mayday call.
As far as I can ascertain there were no ADS-B returns indicating a descent of any sort.
No ACARS transmissions have been reported.
There is a fuel slick in the sea (which, if as a result of a plane hitting the water, the plane would have been largely intact upon impact).
There were two individuals on board using stolen passports.

Then I came across this news report : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10685413/Malaysia-Airlines-crash-terror-fears-over-stolen-passports-used-on-missing-plane-MH370.html

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15 years 1 month

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I just read a piece of info via a link on airliners.net that states that a US military base stationed in Thailand picked up a Mayday call from the B777 and there was mention that the cabin was disintegrating and they wanted to make a forced landing.

Only one single reference of Chinese origin and other posts suggesting meteorites and satellites. It is daybreak there already and the search will continue.

Member for

16 years

Posts: 1,059

I see that too.

In truth, it is beginning to look like a terrorist attack. The B777 is probably the world's safest airliner statistically, the weather was perfect, there were two false passport holders on the aircraft and five whose luggage was loaded but who did not board...

Of course, all at the moment is pure speculation but there does seem a weight of probability developing in one direction.

RIP all those on board and may God be with their friends and families at this tragic time.

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18 years 11 months

Posts: 8,847

two false passport holders on the aircraft and five whose luggage was loaded but who did not board...

I did see a report that this luggage had been removed from the plane.

The two passports were stolen in Thailand and the tickets were bought together.

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13 years 3 months

Posts: 87

Photo of some wreckage that was shown on Sky News. At first glance it looks like it could be one of the wing exit hatches.

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Member for

17 years 9 months

Posts: 35

No such thing fitted on any 777. I fly all varieties. Check Airliners.net and check for yourself.

Right now everything is speculation. Such as this below..

Its either, sudden catastrophic structural failure, loss of control, or a bomb/hijack take over. Anything else as a flight deck crew member you would make a radio call, if only a mayday.

Just be patient everyone.

DXB Driver.

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11 years 8 months

Posts: 569

I'd be very surprised if this crash turned out to be terrorist related, in this day and age where security meticulously scan and re-scan passengers I just can't see it happening (Kuala Lumpur is hardly a shanty airport in central Kenya, the security screening meets international standards and is the same everywhere in the world) - I'm sure the issue of the false passports will turn out to be one for immigration authorities to scratch their heads over rather than as a lead for the FBI. The two are probably unrelated but it's, of course, being played up by the media.

If we learnt anything from AF447, it's that previous safety records are there to be broken. The 777 is a reliable, safe, aircraft no doubt about it but sometimes incidents just happen (there are over 1,000 of them in operation). I agree with DXB, I think it was a sudden structural failure which either blew the aircraft apart there and then, or a structural failure which led to a great loss of control rendering it un-flyable.

I don't believe the aircraft turned back towards Malaysia as is being reported, because if they had enough time to make a rational decision as a crew to turn back then they probably had enough time to send out a distress signal (unless they lost communication as a result of a possible structural failure).

Although one thing is for sure, we won't really know what went on until they find and analyse those black boxes, so let's hope they can.

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11 years 1 month

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