
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370: Where Is It? - IAmEveryone
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/
======
jgwil2
> Forensic examinations of Zaharie’s simulator by the FBI revealed that he
> experimented with a flight profile roughly matching that of MH370—a flight
> north around Indonesia followed by a long run to the south, ending in fuel
> exhaustion over the Indian Ocean. Malaysian investigators dismissed this
> flight profile as merely one of several hundred that the simulator had
> recorded. That is true, as far as it goes, which is not far enough. Victor
> Iannello, an engineer and entrepreneur in Roanoke, Virginia, who has become
> another prominent member of the Independent Group and has done extensive
> analysis of the simulated flight, underscores what the Malaysian
> investigators ignored. Of all the profiles extracted from the simulator, the
> one that matched MH370’s path was the only one that Zaharie did not run as a
> continuous flight—in other words, taking off on the simulator and letting
> the flight play out, hour after hour, until it reached the destination
> airport. Instead he advanced the flight manually in multiple stages,
> repeatedly jumping the flight forward and subtracting the fuel as necessary
> until it was gone.

This seems as close to a smoking gun as we're ever likely to get.

~~~
CamperBob2
_This seems as close to a smoking gun as we 're ever likely to get._

One interesting counterargument is brought up in a rebuttal at
[https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-atlantics-william-
langewie...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-atlantics-william-langewiesche-
dusts-off-discredited-conspiracy-theory-to-accuse-mh370-pilot-of-hijacking) .

The rebuttal piece mostly just flames Langewiesche, and it doesn't offer any
support for any competing theories. But it does pose one question I haven't
seen addressed. Why, if Zaharie wanted to commit suicide by flying into the
middle of nowhere, didn't he turn right instead of left?

His route took him through populated airspace for no apparent reason. If
numerous authorities in multiple countries hadn't been asleep at the switch,
there would have been no mystery at all about what happened.

~~~
Steko
> The rebuttal piece mostly just flames Langewiesche

I would say it raises serious questions about the accuracy of the simulator
Langewiesche relies on and his complete omission of the fact that the
Malaysian government absolutely wanted to blame Zahierie, a fanatical
supporter of the opposition party, but the evidence was pretty thin.

< if Zaharie wanted to commit suicide by flying into the middle of nowhere,
didn't he turn right instead of left?

Which begs the bigger question of why not just fly the plane straight down
into the ocean? The problem with the crazy suicide pilot theory has always
been that it's become basically unfalsifiable. Plane went left? Suicide pilot
wanted to go left. Plane turned right? Suicide pilot wanted to turn right.
Plane turned left again? Suicide pilot must have had his reasons.

~~~
stephen_g
That the crash was intentional is basically the only plausible explanation
given the information at hand though, and given nothing was heard on the
radios, the most likely explanation is one of the pilots. If it had been an
accident, it would make a lot more sense to have crashed much sooner or
otherwise have been more like Helios Airways Flight 522. (In that flight, a
technician had set the pressurisation system to manual to do a test and forgot
to reset it, and then the pilots didn't properly check the switch on any of
the three checks they were meant to do. As they ascended, they became confused
by the various alarms that went off and didn't put on their masks. Falling
unconscious the plan continued on its autopilot heading towards its
destination.)

Given MH370 making multiple turns over a long period, and transponder and
other electrical systems probably having been manually switched off, it's the
most likely explanation. We may never know for sure though.

~~~
Steko
> the only plausible explanation

I personally don't find it that plausible. Is it the least implausible
explanation? Maybe.

> If it had been an accident, it would make a lot more sense to have crashed
> much sooner or otherwise have been more like Helios Airways Flight 522.

This is just hand waving, we can just as easily say "if it was a pilot suicide
it would have been like the known pilot suicide crashes". The fact is that
there are all sorts of mechanical events many of which bear zero resemblance
to the most common or best known ones.

> Given MH370 making multiple turns over a long period, and transponder and
> other electrical systems probably having been manually switched off, it's
> the most likely explanation. We may never know for sure though.

This is circular reasoning. There's no shortage of other reasons the plane
could make multiple turns. There are plenty of reasons the transponder stops
working. Both could happen due to a mechanical event.

------
mrpippy
William Langewiesche is a pilot himself, and has written many other articles
over the last 2 decades detailing accident investigations (among other
things). As much as the technical details, he often explains the
organizational and political circumstances that are just as interesting. Some
that stick with me: the late-90s ValuJet and EgyptAir crashes, and the Space
Shuttle Columbia.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/author/william-
langewiesche](https://www.theatlantic.com/author/william-langewiesche)

[https://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/william-
langewiesche](https://www.vanityfair.com/contributor/william-langewiesche)

~~~
jonathanberger
His book The Outlaw Sea is also a great read if you enjoyed this article and
might find nautical incidents equally interesting.

~~~
rezendi
Strongly seconded.

------
HelloMcFly
I had no particularly noteworthy interest in the topic beyond empathy for the
families at the time. Yet I found this a compelling read. The descriptions and
details made the whole thing pretty easy to follow.

~~~
tptacek
Langewiesche is one of the great narrative journalists of the last 30 years; a
contemporary and colleague of perhaps better-known writers like Mark Bowden
(Blackhawk Down), but I think probably the best of them. It's worth tracking
his previous stories down.

------
ziddoap
There is a really well put together video[1] by a YouTuber, who goes by the
name of Lemmino, covering this topic (among others).

I highly suggest it if this story interests you! And if you like his style,
his Cicada 3301 video is also a fascinating watch.

[1][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd2KEHvK-q8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd2KEHvK-q8)

~~~
LandR
That Cicada stuff is crazy!

------
markbnj
I enjoyed this write up by Langewiesche, but the one thing that bothered me
was the credence lent to the depressurization event without disclosing what if
any evidence there is that it happened? Is there some? In the article he
simply says "circumstances suggest" by which I assume he means the climb to
40k feet.

~~~
Lazare
There's a fairly obvious argument here:

1) It seems pretty clear the plane took hours to crash

2) If the cabin was full of healthy, alive passengers, they could have done
_something_ during that time. (It's not a certainty, but it certainly seems
plausible. Armored cockpit doors aren't meant to withstand dozens of super
motivated people, including cabin crew, with literally hours of time on their
hands.)

3) Apparently nothing was done, so apparently it wasn't full of healthy, alive
passengers.

4) Although a number of things could have killed or incapacitated the
passengers in the cabin, depressurisation is fast, reliable, under the control
of the pilot, and doesn't require any elaborate assumptions about third
parties or deus ex machina. There are other possibilities that have been
discussed elsewhere (poisoned food, perhaps), but Occam's razor suggests
depressurisation.

I think that's what the author was getting at with the "circumstances
suggest". Given what _is_ known about the plane, depressurisation is the most
logical explanation for one of the mysteries.

~~~
tptacek
Depressurization also circumstantially connects with the otherwise unexplained
climb to 40,000 feet, and with the disconnection and reconnection of the
electrical system.

------
fareesh
I remember watching the American news media go crazy over this airplane for
around 1 month every night.

The CNN anchor Don Lemon asked one of the 6 guests on his panel whether it was
possible that the plane had been sucked into a black hole.

~~~
llao
Dear god, you were not joking:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpVd7k1Uw6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpVd7k1Uw6A)

~~~
isostatic
A small black hole would destroy our entire universe apparently

~~~
mc32
Well, it depends if they are speaking colloquially or not. If our “universe”
is our Sun’s solar system, then yes...

------
SolaceQuantum
Amazing prose here. The description of the death of the passengers, and the
final moments of within the cockpit before the plane ran out of fuel, were
chilling in their capacity to imply a peaceful bliss in the wake of hundreds
of needless lost lives.

~~~
dillondoyle
I had the same thought! Something about how the author describes the rush of
air, the security and known 'homeliness' of the cockpit resonates with me.

Im sitting in airport lounge about to hop on a transatlantic. Dreaming of
drifting to sleep up in the air and never waking up is a bit scary but also
peaceful (I am not suicidal, thanks). travel is definitely an easy escape and
repetitious in my life. I like routine and always book the same seat, same
flight to get to Europe, etc. There's comfort there for me and I really
identify the way the author describes the peacefulness of a nighttime long
haul flight.

------
franzb
By the same author, one of the most terrifying story I've ever come across:

A Sea Story
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-s...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-
story/302940/)

~~~
ablation
Langewiesche is an excellent writer and journalist. The Outlaw Sea is a
brilliant compilation of these articles.

------
warp
I was reading about ADS-B, FlightAware and Aireon [1] earlier.

Apparently they've completed a network of satellites in January 2019 and can
now monitor (ADS-B equipped) aircraft anywhere over earth?

Does anyone know more about how this works, does that mean we will never have
a MH370-like situation again because nowadays aircraft can be tracked much
better?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aireon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aireon)

~~~
rtkwe
Depends on how it's set up precisely, ADS-B will still require power from
somewhere. At some point in MH370's flight all the power systems were turned
off for a bit so unless it's connected to it's own battery and ADS-B would
still be disconnected.

~~~
saluki
y, it should be required for all airliners to have a tracking system that can
not be disabled from inside the plane, and has a backup power system. For
situations like this, hijackings, etc.

Also seems like streaming black box data and even cock pit recordings would
already be something that is standard. As a backup/additional data to the
physical black boxes. That could be accessed right away or even in real time.

~~~
erobbins
Maybe, but having an electronic system on an airliner that can't be disabled
could potentially lead to a fire that can't be extinguished and that's why you
can shut down every system as the pilot.

~~~
blytt
It seems reasonable to transmit as much info, including who initiated the
shutdown, at that point so that you can at least attempt to attribute the
reason the transponder went offline.

~~~
rtkwe
How do you do that when power is ultimately controlled by a bank of physical
breakers?

~~~
saluki
Maybe power it the way the black box is powered, a stand alone system that
transmits location and data that is typically also logged to the black boxes.

I'm sure satellite coverage is an issue with getting data in remote areas,
maybe SpaceX's StarLink system could provide a way to stream data from
airliners in more locations.

~~~
rtkwe
No I'm asking how do you put attribution to the physical flipping of a breaker
especially against someone just cutting the whole electrical system out at the
same time with a master breaker.

Satellite coverage isn't really an issue there's already stuff like Inmarsat's
network that covers all but basically the poles. [0] Has SpaceX advertised or
said anything about covering the poles? I doubt they will just because there
are so few customers.

[0] [https://www.inmarsat.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/04/Inmarsat...](https://www.inmarsat.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/04/Inmarsat_C_Mini_C_and_Fleet_77_Coverage_April_2019_EN_LowRes.jpg)

------
NelsonMinar
Langewiesche's a great author but this article doesn't add much in the way of
new information from all the writing of the past three years. One off the
record source about the pilot's mental state, that's about it. I happen to
agree with his speculative conclusion, deliberate action by the pilot, but
there's not really anything significant and new here to support it.

~~~
apendleton
I'm not sure that was the point? I imagine given that you know enough to be
able to make that claim that you've followed coverage of this incident pretty
closely. As someone who hasn't, and mostly came at it from an "oh yeah, that
thing, whatever ended up happening there?" perspective, I found this article
to be an engaging and informative summary of what has happened in the years
since and what we now know.

~~~
hurrdurr2
Yeah, this was definitely the case for me. This article summarized all the
things that I was wondering about over the years regarding this tragedy.

I also agree that the speculative conclusion reached at the end is the most
likely scenario, e.g., pilot suicide with everyone on-board.

------
mbostleman
>>as soon as MH370 disappeared from secondary radar, it turned sharply to the
southwest, flew back across the Malay Peninsula, and banked around the island
of Penang. From there it flew northwest up the Strait of Malacca and out
across the Andaman Sea, where it faded beyond radar range into obscurity. That
part of the flight took more than an hour to accomplish and suggested that
this was not a standard case of a hijacking.>>

What about this suggests that this was not a standard case of hijacking?

~~~
jgwil2
From the article:

> Was this a hijacking? A hijacking is the “third party” solution favored in
> the official report. It is the least painful explanation for anyone in
> authority that night. It has immense problems, however. The main one is that
> the cockpit door was fortified, electrically bolted, and surveilled by a
> video feed that the pilots could see. Also, less than two minutes passed
> between Zaharie’s casual “good night” to the Kuala Lumpur controller and the
> start of the diversion, with the attendant loss of the transponder signal.
> How would hijackers have known to make their move precisely during the
> handoff to Vietnamese air traffic control, and then gained access so quickly
> and smoothly that neither of the pilots had a chance to transmit a distress
> call? It is possible of course that the hijackers were known to the
> pilots—that they were invited into the cockpit—but even that does not
> explain the lack of a radio transmission, particularly during the hand-flown
> turn away from Beijing. Both of the control yokes had transmitter switches,
> within the merest finger reach, and some signal could have been sent in the
> moments before an attempted takeover. Furthermore, every one of the
> passengers and cabin-crew members has been investigated and cleared of
> suspicion by teams of Malaysian and Chinese investigators aided by the FBI.
> The quality of that police work is open to question, but it was thorough
> enough to have uncovered the identities of two Iranians who were traveling
> under false names with stolen passports—seeking, however, nothing more
> nefarious than political asylum in Germany. It is possible that stowaways—by
> definition unrecorded on the airplane’s manifest—had hidden in the equipment
> bay. If so, they would have had access to two circuit breakers that, if
> pulled, would have unbolted the cockpit door. But that scenario has
> problems, too. The bolts click loudly when they open—an unambiguous sound
> that would have been familiar to the pilots. The hijackers would then have
> had to open a galley-floor hatch from below, climb a short ladder, evade
> notice by the cabin crew, evade the surveillance video, and enter the
> cockpit before either of the pilots transmitted a distress call. It is
> unlikely that this could have happened, just as it is unlikely that a flight
> attendant held hostage could have used the door keypad to allow sudden entry
> without firing off a warning. Furthermore, what would the purpose be of a
> hijacking? Money? Politics? Publicity? An act of war? A terrorist attack?
> The intricate seven-hour profile of MH370’s deviation into oblivion fits
> none of these scenarios. And no one has claimed responsibility for the act.
> Anonymity is not consistent with any of these motives.

~~~
mbostleman
Yes, but none of that relates to the hour long series of turns that ended with
the plane pointed towards the Indian Ocean. The quote I pasted referred to
these events as not being indicative of a standard hijacking. Maybe it was
just a poorly worded conclusion. There are definitely other reasons -
primarily the anonymity and lack of any money changing hands.

~~~
mannykannot
The "hour-long series of turns" themselves suggest that it was not a hijacking
- one would expect a hijacked airplane to head towards its intended
destination, regardless of the motive for the hijacking.

It does not seem likely that the path was intended to avoid detection, as it
crosses Malaysia and was within range of Indonesian radar throughout that
period, and it is rather implausible to suggest that these posited hijackers
both wanted to be stealthy, yet chose a route that had no chance of achieving
it. If these posited hijackers wanted their arrival at their intended
destination to be a surprise, their best hope of achieving it would be to
stage a hijacking on a flight close to that destination.

I guess one could suppose that this is the only flight the posited hijackers
could hijack (suggesting help from insiders at the airline), and that the
flight was intended to stay away from land as far as possible, but where,
especially with that final turn, were they going? If their destination was, as
has been suggested, Kazakhstan, they could hardly hope to avoid detection
later in the flight. Nor would they be likely to suspect that the reporting of
the disappearance of the flight would be delayed by hours.

The author did not say that this track proves it was not a hijacking, he wrote
that it already "suggested that this was not a standard case of a hijacking."

