Agreed. You'll never know until you are in that situation.

Let's not forget reports that the plane may have turned around before it disappeared... if that's so, depending on how far it got, it may have been back over land. Given the subtropical jungles in that part of the world, any debris (IF there is any) may be well camouflaged.

And yes, there's always the chance the plane set down somewhere outside the search area, or is even being intentionally hidden (hey, we're getting into the realm of James Bond here, but why not?)

Fact is, nobody knows yet where it went down, how it went down, or even IF it went down... only that it disappeared from radar and all contact was lost. Among all the other speculation, you might just as well add...

A 777 could glide for about 20 minutes without 2 engines but factor weather conditions, weight from the fuel which takes some to dump, passenger load and cargo plus the time of day it would be very unlikely you would be able to land a 777 on water without it ripping a part. Here;s what would most likely happen if a water landing was attempted on a large plane like the 777;


And the miracle on the Hudson was just that, a miracle.

I don't recall Bin Ladin and the Al Qaeda claiming responsibility for 9/11. Well not at least till Oct 2004 but definitely not right away. Not sure if its the strategy for terrorist or if they actually did it or not, they usually don't claim their acts.

actually the MO is they usually do claim responsibility
that's also one of the points that the truthers use in their claim of inside job

:heckno:

This is like some modern day "Bermuda Triangle" mystery...

Malaysia Air saying they are considering the possibility of a turn back and hostage situation.

At this point, I don't know what to think of anymore.

http://i.imgur.com/v5WcgwC.png

Apparently, this is the area that the plane would've been able to travel to

I'm sorry, but this article just screams "written by someone with no concept of technology". Just because the author thinks it should be possible, doesn't mean it is possible. You might be able to get wifi on a domestic flight, but I doubt both the ability for a system like this to work in an area such as this, and the difficulty in getting the tech into the field in large-scale use.

What if it went down into land-locked water? I'm not overly familiar with all of the geography of the area, but if one of the following happened, it would be pretty hard to find (due to the lack of obvious debris fields and craters/fire):

1) Pilot attempts to put down into a remote lake for whatever reason, plane shreds like that Ethiopian highjacking. By now the debris would likely all be pushed to the shores making it even harder to find.
2) Plane explodes over the jungle, debris rains down into dense bush which basically just absorbs it.
3) Combo of 1 & 2, plane explodes and debris lands mostly in lakes.

edit: after reading that wiki article on ValuJet 592, if it went down nose first into the jungle, you'd have a hell of a time finding it unless someone witnessed it.

that is IF it remained at cruising altitude which it probably didn't considering the fact that it fell off radar

Possibly a stupid question, but could it have gone higher? I'm assuming cruising height isn't the max altitude, is there a cutoff height for radar?

edit: according to Sky News: "Vietnam has confirmed it is sending helicopters to check a floating "yellow object" that it is thought could be a life raft from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane."

edit 2: "Civil aviation officials in Vietnam say the yellow object spotted floating in the sea is not a life raft from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight."

BREAKING: Report: Vietnam Helicopters To Check Sighting of Possible Life Raft From Missing Jet

Max altitude really depends on weight, winds and surrounding traffic. Pilot would have requested an altitude increase if he needed to go higher.

I believe the Air france, brazil to france crash in 2009 took 2 years for the plane to be found. this might be one of those situations where we wont know for a long time.

Confirmed it isn't a life raft :(

Could it be possible that hijackers have forced the plane to land in areas familiar to many terrorist organizations such as Southern Philippines and parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, or even Burma?

Maybe if that did happened they have the plane and hostages hidden somewhere and are extorting the Airline Company, Malay Government or someone else for ransom or other reasons?

Very unlikely, air traffic controllers would know if a huge plane is going to land in an airport that has a big enough runway.

I'd say it's almost certainly crashed and we won't know for a while what really happened.

yeah, definitely.

italian and austiran passports stolen in Thailand, i'm going to assume they were owned by vacationers or at least people who would need their passport on a more than regular basis - so pretty soon.

just so you know, most people in the world cross borders, i ALWAYS know where my passport is, as i usually need it on a bimonthly basis, especially if i'm travelling with it, i'll always know where it is.

so to answer your questions - days at most.

and, interpol knew about the stolen passports, so not even sure why you're trying to argue a point

it's not easy to hide the sights and sounds of a 200 ton airplane

Asked to clarify the appearance of passengers on stolen passports, Malaysia’s civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman bizarrely suggested they looked like the black Italian footballer Mario Balotelli.

Hong Kong's Air Traffic Control Center reported on Mar 10th 2014 around 17:30L (09:30Z) that an airliner enroute on airway L642 reported via HF radio that they saw a large field of debris at position N9.72 E107.42 about 80nm southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, about 50nm off the south-eastern coast of Vietnam in the South China Sea and about 281nm northeast of the last known radar position. Ships have been dispatched to the reported debris field.

http://avherald.com/img/malaysia_b77...d_140308_2.jpg

Crash: Malaysia B772 over Gulf of Thailand on Mar 8th 2014, aircraft missing

There were two ukranians and a russian on the plane......
Just saying

and yet the true stolen italian passport owner is white, guess they could add a new photo (not sure how easy that is), but still

it's all so weird

HF worked lol

80nm from ho chi Minh and on a low airway... Why didn't they report to ho,chi Minh :\

^ not in range yet from the sounds of it.

Apparently they've ID'd one of the people who used a stolen passport.

I was initially under the impression that they had been recently stolen, in which case days or even hours are long enough to use the passport to get somewhere. Since they had been stolen 18 months before it seems pretty weak that they didn't get caught using them.