Plane missing with 236 people on board

[freakiness]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-08/malaysia-airlines-lost-contact-with-plane/5307888

Malaysia Airlines says one of its planes has gone missing on the way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

A statement from the airline says flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic controllers at 2:40am local time, just over two hours into the flight.

The plane, a Boeing 777-200, left Kuala Lumpur at 12:41am on Saturday, and had been due to arrive in Beijing at 6:30am local time.

The company says the plane was carrying 227 passengers, including two infants, and 12 crew members.

The airline says it is contacting the next-of-kin of all passengers and crew, which includes people of 13 different nationalities.

In a statement on the airline's website, group chief executive officer Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said the airline was working with authorities to locate the aircraft.

"Focus of the airline is to work with the emergency responders and authorities and mobilise its full support," the statement said.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with all affected passengers and crew and their family members."

The airline says it will provide regular updates on its website.

The ABC understand Malaysia Airlines will hold a press conference on the incident shortly.

[colic2bullsgirlore]

 It may be that the plane landed somewhere and all the people are still alive. If the plane was hijacked the hijackers may

have been waiting until the malaysian authorities twigged to highlight their cause rather than make demands or a

statement.

[cherry*135]

Yes, that is a possiblity colic.

[colic2bullsgirlore]

While my thoughts are primarily with the passengers,crew and their relatives the new revelations has implications for anybody that flies.

i am thinking almost akin to when the hijackers turned planes into weapons and attacked the world trade centre and other

targets in the US in that if this could happen to one flight why could it not happen to another?

That incident changed the face of flight security

The planning that has gone into the "deception' is extraordinary, thought provoking and indeed disturbing.

[debra9275]

I ended up missing the news conferecnce after all that due to visitors lol

will go and search the net to see what I missed

[nevynreally]

---

@colic2bullsgirlore wrote:

While my thoughts are primarily with the passengers,crew and their relatives the new revelations has implications for anybody that flies.

i am thinking almost akin to when the hijackers turned planes into weapons and attacked the world trade centre and other

targets in the US in that if this could happen to one flight why could it not happen to another?

That incident changed the face of flight security

The planning that has gone into the "deception' is extraordinary, thought provoking and indeed disturbing.

---

I'm not so sure about the planning. I posted last Wednesday that someone stated that they were approached by the PILOT to come into the cockpit during the flight before they boarded the flight. Perhaps this was known by the wrong people?

[colic2bullsgirlore]

Anybody that has 43 boats, 50 aircraft and 14 countries radars looking not within a bulls roar of where the plane has now been

triangulated to for a week didn't make it up on the spot... In my humble opinion.

It would make it a mile easier to hide the planned destination ans give them plenty of time to cover their tracks

[monman12]

"It may be that the plane landed somewhere and all the people are still alive."

It would be pretty hard to hide or not know of  a 8000 ----10,000 foot  runway.

Crash landing in a 777-200 at the front end would not appeal to myself.

 nɥºɾ

PS

It is ironic that the more expensive seats on an aircraft are in the most "dangerous" part of the plane, the front. That is why the "black box" and various crash locator beacons are in the tailplane area.

[nevynreally]

---

@colic2bullsgirlore wrote:

Anybody that has 43 boats, 50 aircraft and 14 countries radars looking not within a bulls roar of where the plane has now been

triangulated to for a week didn't make it up on the spot... In my humble opinion.

It would make it a mile easier to hide the planned destination ans give them plenty of time to cover their tracks

---

Why is anyone allowed to turn the black box off? There is no reason ever why anyone should have the access and capability to do that.

And I don't think we've been given the full story still. 

[nevynreally]

---

@monman12 wrote:

"It may be that the plane landed somewhere and all the people are still alive."

It would be pretty hard to hide or not know of  a 8000 ----10,000 foot  runway.

Crash landing in a 777-200 at the front end would not appeal to myself.

 nɥºɾ

PS

It is ironic that the more expensive seats on an aircraft are in the most "dangerous" part of the plane, the front. That is why the "black box" and various crash locator beacons are in the tailplane area.

---

The press conference I just watched said they were all turned off 12 minutes before the plane disappeared from radar. 

[cherry*135]

Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak said there were two potential final satellite communications from the plane — one in the southern Indian Ocean near Indonesia, and another on the border between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

In a press conference held on Saturday afternoon, Mr Razak said that the plane was steered in a westerly direction.

"These moments are consistent deliberation action from someone on the plane," he said.

"According to the new data, the last confirmed communication between the plane and the satellite was at 8.11am Malaysia time on Saturday."

Mr Razak confirmed the plane's transponder was switched off.

"Based on new satellite communication, we can say with a high degree of certainty that the aircraft communication addressing and reporting system was disabled just before the aircraft reached the east coast of the peninsula of Malaysia," he said.

"Shortly afterwards, near the border of the Malaysia and Vietnamese air traffic control, the aircraft's transponder was switched off."

Mr Razak would not confirm whether the plane fell victim to a hijacking, despite an anonymous Malaysian official saying so earlier today.

"It has to be a skilled, competent and a current pilot," said the official, who is involved in a vast international search and rescue operation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said that theory was based on still undisclosed data from military radar.

The radar continued to plot the jet's course for hours after it vanished from air-traffic control screens and civilian radar, he said.

The plane flew in the direction of the Indian Ocean far west of its intended flight path "for four to five hours," the official said.

"He knew how to avoid the civilian radar. He appears to have studied how to avoid it."

Malaysia's air force has previously said that it was investigating an unidentified object spotted by military radar data heading toward the Andaman Sea in the hours after the passenger plane went missing around 1:30 am.

The official would not divulge details of the military data, citing an ongoing investigation