Malaysian Jet

Quote: beachbumbabs

SOOPOO,

I accept. I don't know where it is or why it was taken, but I think it's landed somewhere. $10. :)

I think if I was a bookie I'd make the odds of it having landed successfully, with absolutely no one claiming responsibility for such in 12 days, around 1-2%. As Mike would say, at even money, I think I have a good bet!
Do you think the passengers are alive?

Quote: SOOPOO

I think if I was a bookie I'd make the odds of it having landed successfully, with absolutely no one claiming responsibility for such in 12 days, around 1-2%. As Mike would say, at even money, I think I have a good bet!
Do you think the passengers are alive?

Well, you could be right. But then, almost every "normal" answer has been exhausted, so we'll see what happens next.

I don't have any feeling about the passengers being alive or dead. Certainly more likely dead right now. But I don't think they were the focus of the event, so even if the plane landed, they may have been left to fend for themselves somewhere incredibly remote.

OTOH, they've found something 1500 miles off Perth, AU via satellite photo 9 days old. They have not re-located the object(s) by air, at the extreme south end of the projected arc of possibilities before fuel exhaustion. May be another false lead. Maybe not.

Quote: beachbumbabs

But there could be rulemaking for commercial aircraft, requiring them to have this passive system. I thought it would be forced on aviation after 9-11, because we lost those aircraft due to transponder discontinuance, and we do not ever want that to happen again.

Thumbs up for most knowledgeable answer to questions.

Quote: SOOPOO

Do you think the passengers are alive?

No. Anyone willing to expose them to such great risks is willing to kill them with an open water ditching and no mayday or witnesses.

A hardwired transponder is great but look at the difficulty we have with EPIRBS that don't have updated contact information and get set off in land fills, on delivery trucks and in the middle of the ocean.

I wonder if the cockpit crew was taken hostage, and the strange turns were actually done to avoid going to some land target. Perhaps the hostage takers thought they were on a different course, and the pilot was doing the only thing he could to avoid it.

Anyway, of the several odd things about this, cruising around for so long if you intend to crash in the ocean doesn't completely add up. Of course, it could be hours of reconsideration.

Quote: beachbumbabs

The Captain is the most likely perpetrator, and he is a fanatical follower of the democratic and non-violent opposition to the current Malaysian gov't.

I hadn't heard this; a search shows this story is mostly from several days ago. I wonder if anyone debunked it?

PS:

It's on the front cover of the Daily Mail. It's about as trust worthy as heroin addict looking for their next fix holding on to a paper envelope full of $10 bills.

Based on the reporting last night, I thought we might actually have the confirmed location of some debris by late today.

Quote: rxwine

Based on the reporting last night, I thought we might actually have the confirmed location of some debris by late today.

We may well; they said they called a 10 hour halt at 8am Eastern for darkness. They also said it's 4 hours to the site, though they should be able to take off in darkness and fly to the coordinates. Unless they station a tanker overhead for refueling (which, honestly, they should - and they might -, but I ain't running the search), they have about 3 1/2 hours on site, then 4 hours back for fuel.