Why is everyone obsessed with the Captain?  what about the F/O? or the engineer jumpseating? Hell, even a F/A has to sit in the cockpit in some airlines if one of the flight crew needs to take a leak..  What about the dude sitting in 4A? he had a beard...

 

Just baseless speculation with no facts..

 

@Dugald, "Irresponsible reporting" welcome to 2014, the age of sensationalist headlines & social media saturation  

I did not hear that someone was in the jumpseat.  The only cockpit crew I have heard of were the FO and Pilot

Except Malaysia...  which apparently was tracking a primary radar target but did not intercept

True enough, Rob. But then that just opens up another can-o-worms, does it not? Just why didn't the Malaysian Air Force investigate a UFO?

Unless things have changed since ValuJet 592's days, cabin oxygen is generated by a chemical reaction in an above seat oxygen generator (one per seat)

 

Some 777s are optionally fitted with gas bottles for the pax O2 system.  But the point is that if the system is disabled, then the O2 source is irrelevant.  The O2 generators are triggered by pulling out a pin when the mask is pulled out, but the solenoids that drop the masks still have to be powered open--if the CB for the pax O2 system is pulled on the flight deck, that would presumably disable the system by preventing deployment of the masks.  Even if the system isn't disabled, the O2 generators are typically only good for 12-15 minutes (intended to cover the time elapsed in an emergency descent)...and with a cabin altitude in the 30,000+ ft range, they aren't even much good there.  Anyway, after 15 minutes it would all be a moot point anyway.

 

Cheers

With regards to the speculation about the aircraft being hijacked for the future purpose of using it as a flying bomb...

 

...I cannot imagine any scenario where a large, unidentified aircraft flying anywhere in the world would not be intercepted by armed fighter aircraft from any nation who's airspace they violated. :ph34r:

Fr Bill- consider the possibility that their airspace was NOT being violated but that the "large unidentified aircraft" was being welcomed.

i can think of several.

january

With regards to the speculation about the aircraft being hijacked for the future purpose of using it as a flying bomb...

 

...I cannot imagine any scenario where a large, unidentified aircraft flying anywhere in the world would not be intercepted by armed fighter aircraft from any nation who's airspace they violated. :ph34r:

 

Bill...the vast majority of the planet is not covered by the kind of air defense radar needed to spot an aircraft a long ways out.  The US has spent a grand fortune on the radar arrays that we use to watch for hostile aircraft coming to visit...that kind of technical effort is extremely expensive to field and maintain, and as a result is extremely uncommon in the world.  Oceanic airspace, the 777's playground, is largely uncovered by any kind of radar at all, with ATC services only made possible using self-reported positions by cooperating aircraft.

 

Cheers

 

 

So the focus seems to be on the pilots now. They searched their homes and of course, everyone knows the captain had a sim.

 

I don't necessarily believe this but some have speculated they he could have used the sim as a trainer for this mission. Wouldn't they be able to determine this pretty quickly by looking at the FS log book (also potential locations for the aircraft)? Being a T7 captain, I highly doubt he would have used the FS flight planner but are there other data that can be pulled from FS to see what he was doing with the sim?

Fr Bill- consider the possibility that their airspace was NOT being violated but that the "large unidentified aircraft" was being welcomed.

i can think of several.

January

I agree.  I can see a civilian aircraft carrying a weapon(s) of mass destruction would be easier to deliver to a target than firing a missile. 

 

Best regards,

I don't think that there will be a ban on flight simulation games.  The truth is that a person can learn to fly any number of ways, in the RW as much as the PC world.  Level D sims and such are out there for those who want to pay the money to fly them.  And lesser full-on sims as well, but not full-motion.

 

Truth is, if a person wants to do wrong, it's pretty hard to prevent it.  You can try, you can gather intelligence, network, and so on, but if the individual is nutso, he or she can present problems, and not just with aircraft piracy.

 

Defending a nation, or even just a simple city or town is no can of corn these days. My hat is off to those men and women who bust their tails on a daily basis so that we can live our lives in peace and safety.  Our fine military, and our great law enforcement teams on the civilian side.  Great job to one and all, and sincere thanks and appreciation!

 

Kinda like the argument that all "Guns" are bad and kill people needing to be banned when it's those that intend to use guns, to kill, that need NO/limited access...

Indeed. If someone wanted to ban flight simulators then surely every single war game out there should be banned too, after all they include shooting, something that is often part of terrorist attacks. Some of them, such as Arma series, are actually quite realistic and could be used to train terrorists. 

 

That's obviously not going to happen, neither will FS ban. 

          3 pieces of evidence point to jet's takeover

 

Just found this great article: http://news.yahoo.com/3-pieces-evidence-point-jets-takeover-041545826--finance.html

 

Summary for those who don't want to read whole article:

 

3 pieces of evidence - Transponder, ACARS and guided flight.

 

Aircraft communication systems were turned off some time before contact was lost - transponder and ACARS. But only information part of ACARS was turned off, and not the transmission part. Information part can be turned off from cockpit(FMC), and transmission part can be turned off only from electronics bay beneath the cockpit and it's more complicated. They said - "That's something a pilot wouldn't normally know how to do".

 

The third indication, after transponder and ACARS were turned off, the aircraft was tracked by Malaysian military radar for some time. They folowed waypoints(other then their filed route), until it was several hundred miles (kilometers) offshore and beyond the range of military radar. That explains why Malaysia did not intercept. And that proves somebody skiled was in control of aircarft

With regards to the speculation about the aircraft being hijacked for the future purpose of using it as a flying bomb...

 

...I cannot imagine any scenario where a large, unidentified aircraft flying anywhere in the world would not be intercepted by armed fighter aircraft from any nation who's airspace they violated. :ph34r:

 

Speaking of things one can't imagine I wouldn't have imagined what happened on 9/11 outside the confines of Hollywood or a video game. Most of us back then wouldn't have believed it could have been pulled off much less someone having the balls to do it. Last month I wouldn't have imagined a 777 disappearing like this outside of an episode from X-Files or Outer Limits. Anything is possible with enough will and connections. Terrorists certainly have the will and countries like Iran have the connections.

 

I will say this if the plane proves to be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean terrorist have gotten a motherload of information as to the weakness of airspaces, militaries, low flying tacktics, and what countries who aren't on top of their airspace traffic. I've watched what I've said concerning theories as enough informaton is already floating around out there that could give the wrong people ideas.

 

 

I agree. I can see a civilian aircraft carrying a weapon(s) of mass destruction would be easier to deliver to a target than firing a missile.

 

...and, the lingering doubts anybody shooting it down might have...there might be passengers aboard...

@Ultra - No idea if he was actually on the flight deck or  cabin jumpseat's. My post was just to hammer home that no one has a clue. If we go down the hijack route everyone on board is a suspect, not just the captain.

 

 It doesn't take a type  rating or home sim to learn how to steer an airliner through the MCP or reprogram an FMC.

 

Regards.

@Ultra - No idea if he was actually on the flight deck or  cabin jumpseat's. My post was just to hammer home that no one has a clue. If we go down the hijack route everyone on board is a suspect, not just the captain.

 

 It doesn't take a type  rating or home sim to learn how to steer an airliner through the MCP or reprogram an FMC.

 

Regards.

I think it had to be someone that was already in the cockpit. One or both of the crew, or someone they allowed in the jump seat. If it was a forced entry there would have been time to get a warning to ATC and squawk the hijack code. Those doors are pretty hard to get through after 9/11! I don't think a bomb was use, because it probably would have damaged other systems or the integrity of the aircraft, making controlled flight afterwards less likely. I'm thinking they let someone they shouldn't have into the jump seat.

It's difficult for me to imagine a scenario where any of the usual suspects amongst rogue states would wish to attempt to commandeer an entire plane for nefarious purposes. One, they have an ostensible ally in China, North Korea in particular - seems to be a lot of risk to try to turn a 777 into a flying bomb when they have so many other ways to cause mischief in the world that involve far far less risk than a one-off plot to turn a T7 into a kamikaze. They like to use proxies, but hide behind plausible deniability. To easy to have your "fingerprints" on this if you're a state actor.

 

I believe Occam's Razor is applicable - it appears likely that the plane was flown by a professional pilot, and that narrows the list of suspects considerably. The next issue is although not impossible, it's a trick for someone to gain entry into the cockpit. The simplest explanation is the "pilot" was already in the cockpit.

 

In criminal law, we like to have motive, but it's not an element of an offense. It's relevant, as in if I want to show person "A" committed a crime, it's helpful to know if he had a motive to do so - it is relevant to identification. But it isn't a necessary element of proving a crime, like and act and intent. Sometimes we can't explain why someone did something because the mind is a mysterious thing, but when all other facts point to that person, you can still conclude they "did it."

 

In this case it's far to early to conclude anything, but if I apply Occam's Razor, knowing no more, I'd lay better than even odds it was the one of the two people in the cockpit having a meltdown and wanting to go out in spectacular style, sad, tragic, and simple.