If they took the southerner route any remote island or any other possibility of why other than a ditching?

I just hope that the plane was not landed, unloaded, repainted, refueled and sent to deliver a nasty payload somewhere.

That would be the worst case scenario in my estimation.

yeah, plus the fact that all the passengers would most likely have been summarily executed if that is the case.

From a Slate article earlier this morning:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/03/15/flight_370_disappearance_missing_airliner_apparently_flew_to_central_asia.html

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Update, March 15, 9:10 a.m.: When the flight first disappeared from air traffic controllers’ radar a week ago, the default assumption was that the plane had crashed. Now it seems unlikely that a plot as ingeniously planned and carefully executed as this one would not also have included plans for safe arrival at some ultimate destination. As I reported earlier, the 777 is capable of landing on small airstrips and on relatively unimproved surfaces, such as packed dirt and dry lake beds. In such a scenario, the odds are good that, unless they were murdered, the passengers remain alive. The motives and intentions of whoever took MH370 remain as murky as ever, but possibilities include a hostage scenario, the repurposing of the aircraft as an enormous flying bomb, or some combination of these and other outcomes.

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So, if you fly that 777 due West, and take a right turn past India, can you reach Iran within the 8 hour window? Iranians could do some very interesting things with a 777 sized fuel bomb.

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Iranians already have much nastier options than this.

It has already been established that two Iranians with fake passports were on board, and that the plane flew for at least 7.5 hours. How far West can it go in 8 hours without violating Indian or Chinese airspace?

I don't think it makes any sense to highjack to for future use.

probably the Arabian peninsula or maybe Iran. Madagascar. maybe the western coast of Africa. do we still have any ships in the Arabian Sea, though? you would think they would pick up unknown aircraft flying that direction.

I was gonna add you can buy a huge Russian military surplus aircraft for five hundred thousand dollars, much easier way to get a plane for future use.

Im betting those Iranians had nothing to do with this in spite of what mousad wants us to think.

I had this idea yesterday. What if this is the plan:

1. Hijack plane with transponder device.

2. Land somewhere remote and fill it with explosives, nuke or conventional.

3. On day of attack, hijack another plane that had destination near your target and take it down out of radar.

4. Turn on bomb equipped plane transponder and make it send data as if it was plane 2.

5. Bomb equipped plane now approaches target city undetected, bc they're expecting a plane with that transponder signal.

Aero types, is that even possible?

^
Damn. ..scary thought.

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I had this idea yesterday. What if this is the plan:

1. Hijack plane with transponder device.

2. Land somewhere remote and fill it with explosives, nuke or conventional.

3. On day of attack, hijack another plane that had destination near your target and take it down out of radar.

4. Turn on bomb equipped plane transponder and make it send data as if it was plane 2.

5. Bomb equipped plane now approaches target city undetected, bc they're expecting a plane with that transponder signal.

Aero types, is that even possible?

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Really scary thought...

This would be a pretty huge leap in sophistication of a terrorist attack so hopefully it's not the case. Not to mention if hijacking of another plane were that possible (not to say simple, but "doable") then you probably would have already seen it happen...over and over...

#4 is kind of a problem, you are suggesting spoofing transponder readings to impersonate another plane? I don't think it's as easy as writing "I'm not hijacked, really!" on a nametag. I got to imagine those signals are intertwined with the ships in zillions of unique IDs that couldn't be faked without a miracle

See that's my real question, since I know nothing about those devices. Could you even do that.

maybe they stole the plane to give them time to figure out the systems and eventually attempt an attack on a bunch of planes at once....


of course you'd think it'd be easier just to attack a manufacturing facility.

Some yahoo went loopy, possibly the pilot. They may have had grand plans at the time, but it's at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. It will never be found except for the occasional seat cushion or drifting scrap.

[This message has been edited by DannyDuberstein (edited 3/15/2014 7:13p).]

Anybody starting to think this is all just a big distraction

for Ukraine? sure

Distraction from Russia invading Ukraine was my wife's first thought......

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but it's at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. It will never be found except for the occasional seat cushion or drifting scrap.

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I really doubt that it shot directly to the bottom of the ocean like a bullet. If it is in the water, it will show up, Probably quite a bit of it.

No matter where the plane is, it can't refuel w/out some serious assistance.

It also cannot take of from a short runway unless there is a conveyor belt.

So it would take off faster if it was on a conveyor belt

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but it's at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. It will never be found except for the occasional seat cushion or drifting scrap.

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I really doubt that it shot directly to the bottom of the ocean like a bullet. If it is in the water, it will show up, Probably quite a bit of it.

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Didn't say it shot there like a bullet, but that's where it is after a week. Small pieces will show up ... eventually. Some of them likely to go unidentified. But I wouldn't hold my breath that some giant hunk of fuselage us just going to wash up an Indian beach one day.

[This message has been edited by DannyDuberstein (edited 3/15/2014 9:21p).]

Number 8 is awesome, once we find out the armadillo was the pilot.

Whats the typical amount of runway needed for a triple 7 to take off safely

Depends on how much you weigh. Clearly CLL 7000' is no problem. I have no idea where they were going. I doubt if they were going nonstop to LHR, but I suppose it wouldn't be a problem if you had a light pax/cargo load. I'm not sure if CLL is certified all the way up to 600,000lbs.

I know for a while the long runway at NRT was closed due to a very sad and tragic FedEx event. Planes to the US were using the short runway.

It's been a few years since I flew the 777.

The only time I rode on a triple 7 was the year or the year after they came out. From DFW to MIA. Tv's everywhere

How much actual flying do pilots do nowadays with all the automation

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How much actual flying do pilots do nowadays with all the automation

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in my experience, this question makes some pilots very very butthurt.

I didn't mean anything by it. Im legit curious what flying a plane is like in the modern age

I know, it just reminded me

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4. Turn on bomb equipped plane transponder and make it send data as if it was plane 2.

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This would actually be fairly easy to do and has even been done at least once that I can think of. Air Force One carrying President Bush squaked a transponder code that made ground controllers think the 747 was actually a small business jet on their way to Iraq following the war. It wasn't until the controllers saw the airplane on final that they realized it was a 747.

They way this works is actually surprisingly simple. Whoever files the flight plan provides all the information about the flight. Where it's going, type of airplane, etc. When the clearance is given a transponder code is issued that ties the airplane to that flight information. So when a controller sees an airplane with, for example, transponder code 5555, they know that it's tied to whatever flight plan was issued that code. The airplane is actually not transmitting anything other than a four digit code and altitude. No other information about the type of plane, destination, etc.

So really all a plane has to do is either file deceiving data with the flight plan or steal a code used by another airplane. Either way the airplanes true identity would be masked.