Ftrooppilot

Unrelated to MH370 but an example of when everything is turned off.

Jan 1966 - flew a C-141 into Nellis AFB and picked up a "civilian" with engines running. We were briefed on his identification and to "follow his instructions to the letter." He sat down in the jump seat and directed us to turn OFF all navaids, radars, IFF, etc so the only thing left was the radios.

He them directed us to take off VFR. (MAC airplanes always filed an instrument flight plan ) We did so and he leveled us off real low and vectored us all over the countryside. After 25-30 minutes he said land about 10 miles straight ahead. Longest runway (on a dry lake) that I had ever seen.

And there they were - CIA A-12s (not USAF SR-71s) lined up. The first thing I noticed was they all had the same tail number. I had arrived at Area 51.

Never saw any Martians. If we had gone down enroute they would have a lot of territory to search.

The701Express

I agree, the probable cause, if it's ever determined, could very well be mechanical. Gun to my head, that's what my guess would be.

However, speculation and fear mongering, especially by someone in a position of authority who stands to financially gain from it, such as Mr. Chertoff, is reprehensible. Additionally, it provides nothing constructive to the discussion.

I'm glad to hear your personal position differs from that of the firm you work for and I appreciate your reliance upon verified evidence. There is certainly need for much more of that these days.

KC10 FATboy

In my instance, the plane probably would have flown for a long time. The autopilot wires were routed in another area of the plane separate from the bundles that were on fire.

However, just because they made no further VHF transmissions doesn't mean the VHF radios were busted. A fire, just like the one that burned Egypt Air's 777, could have forced the crew from their seats. In Egypt Air's case, in less than 15 seconds they had a raging fire in the cockpit. So, no talking on the radio equals the same thing as broken radios.

As I said, unless we find those boxes, the plane, or bodies, we may never know.

If we find bodies with no soot in their lungs, then we can probably rule out a fire. Until then, it's a very real possibility.

You shouldn't be so closed minded.

ClarenceOver

I don't know why you think this. People that are seemingly "normal" fly off the handle all the time. You don't know what their true backrounds were. A particular check airmen for one of the legacies who had 3 familys and the families didn't find out about each other until after he died is one example i can think of. Stop thinking because someone seems normal that they are predictable.

F224

Point well taken, but 25+ years as a still active street cop/security guy tells me there are always other pre-event indicators when we look into the backgrounds of people who go "postal" on us. Only exhaustive back ground checks of every person on the flight crew, cabin crew, ground servicing staff and passengers will fully answer that question.

And I am suspicious of other countries back ground checks. There is substantial propaganda value, particularly to the Chineese, if they can find the crash site first and "prove" that none of their "citizens" had anything to do with it.

Regarding my firms position; we don't have one, we will just continue to seek the truth. I can think of no case where we lined up on the side of an issue simply because it would help line our pockets. Unlike others who waste their credibility and integrity for a few dollars hawking some supposed golden bullet or wacky legal theories. Doing that does not serve the customer and in this case that customer is the paying passenger and the airports who are there to serve them.

Plenty of accident investigations have come up with probable cause with no airplane ever recovered. I hope that is not the case here and still pray for the family's of the passengers and crew.

As Brietbart said, "Truth isn't mean, it's truth".

ShyGuy

The scenario you are suggesting (pilot involvement intentional/suicide) doesn't fit the historic profile for suicide. In the last 20 years, two cases have been Egypt Air 990 and Silk Air 185. In both cases, the suicidal pilot waited until the normal pilot left the cockpit for the bathroom break. Then, all hell broke loose and the aircrafts in both cases had the AP turn off and basically nose dive. Impact was quick from first change of vertical/horizontal profile.

In this case, you didn't have that. Besides, if you aren't going to just ditch it straight down for suicide, the next best guess would be intentionally flying it into a land mark. But that didn't happen either. In fact, the route it took was all basically off land and over water. The trajectory path makes it look like it flew all the way until it ran out of fuel.

This profile doesn't fit a suicidal/intentional action. IMO, I'm leaning towards a failure of some sort in the flight deck as far as electrical systems go. Perhaps an electrical fire. Something that got the pilots attention so quickly they didn't have the time to send off a VHF emergency declaration. Maybe in the secondary plan they had built a return towards Malaysia at the end of which the aircraft reverted to heading and just continued flying straight out? Electrical smoke over coming them, maybe pressurization issues (akin to Helios Airways B737 type of flight).

We don't know yet, but all of these issues sound a lot more plausible then a deliberate action by either pilot.

F224

Regarding mine or the firm I'm with position; we don't have one, we will just continue to seek the truth. I can think of no case where we took one side of an issue simply because it would help line our pockets. Unlike others who waste their credibility and integrity for a few dollars hawking some supposed golden bullet fix or wacky legal theories. Doing that does not serve the customer and in this case that customer is the paying passenger and the airports who are there to serve them.

galaxy flyer

Shy Guy,

The problem is you are trying to make a trend line out of two data points. In both of those cases, the investigation concluded suicide as the likeliest cause using recovered recorders and wreckage. What if the lesson learned by an experienced pilot is "hide the wreckage"?

Accidents involving badly damaged planes all had numerous radio comms made before the end. Swiss 111, UPS in DXB, QF 32, JAL 747 all were severely damaged or engulfed in fire and comms went out. We knew exactly where one each one was until impact or landing in the case of QF 32.

GF

F4E Mx

It is not known if the 'comms went out' or not. THe pilots may have 'gone out' as being overcome with smoke and fumes. You can say the transponder ceases and later ACARS stopped functioning, and the radios, for whatever reason, were not or could not be used.

atpwannabe

IMHO, all the reason more to suspect them!

atp