
A Crucial Clue the MH370 Investigators Missed - tomohawk
http://www.thedrive.com/news/26785/malaysia-airlines-flight-370-5-years-later-the-crucial-clue-all-the-mh370-investigators-overlooked
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ablation
> "Whoever took MH370 was determined, aggressive, and far more sophisticated
> than investigators have been willing to contemplate. They have also
> succeeded in fooling officials, the public, and most of the press for half a
> decade. That’s an uncomfortable prospect, and one that many people would
> prefer to ignore. But if it’s true—or even possibly true—then it’s something
> that needs to be dealt with expeditiously. Because that could mean whoever
> took MH370 is still out there...and nothing whatsoever has been done to stop
> them."

This just reads like so much conspiracy theory. I just cannot figure out the
motivation behind anyone to do this, knowing what we know. Given that, the
whole article just feels... thin. I know it's Jeff Wise pushing his book full
of this, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised, and perhaps his well-founded take
on it is in there. Perhaps not.

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ggm
Why people seek reasons beyond the two well known reasons planes fall out of
the sky is beyond comprehension, except that it fits the zeitgeist of today:
conspiracy theory sells more than occam's razor.

Occam's razor suggests that the simpler solution would apply: It was
controlled flight into terrain i.e. pilot action. The second choice after
this, is a significant failure in flight.

You would have to walk a long long way past this to get causal chains which
made conspiracy theories the best choice, and almost every time you have to
take something we know, like systemic corruption in Malaysia at all levels
which makes people lie about things, and use it as a 1 == 0 rule to justify
_they knew about the conspiracy_ when a more likely answer is, they simply are
lying out of policy and practice.

Obviously "somebody knows more" but it will be about a very pedestrian thing
like falsified repair reports, a spare part bought on the black market to save
money (Malaysian Airlines has been in significant financial trouble in the
past and bad spares are a problem in the industry worldwide) A black mark
against the pilot for personal reasons. It won't be about a large
international 'lets do this' thing and the reason is quite simple: There is
good evidence that large, state actor conspiracies do not remain secret.
Things which neccessarily demand hundreds of people remain silent, do not
remain secret because hundreds of people either cannot remain silent or leave
causal chains, evidence around them.

We know about secret US bases because of fitbit GPS.

We know about Israeli super-secret device hacking.

We know about the Russians in Syria.

We know about Iran-Contra.

There is no 'wake up sheeple' story here. There are of course small conspiracy
moments, like the people who sold the forged spare parts, or the people who
knew the state of mind of the pilot and don't want to talk about it. Thats a
different kind of conspiracy of silence: they have strong motivations to
remain quiet, and less of them exist, and less evidence is likely to leak.

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DuskStar
Unfortunately, CFIT raises the questions of "but why" and "why like this",
while hardware failure alone cannot explain the disappearance.

Look, the government-accepted cause is already pretty much a conspiracy
theory. Pilot (and copilot, and possibly other crew) decide to make themselves
disappear, and almost succeed. Except we haven't found a plane where that
theory says we should have.

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akhilcacharya
I've been following the case since the plane was first declared missing, and
Jeff Wise has been pushing the conspiracy angle for quite a while now. I'm
willing to consider it, but I'm not sure if he's proposing anybody with the
(absolutely immense, more-than-state-actor) means or motivation to do
something like this and keep it a secret for nearly 5 years.

~~~
ams6110
I was also about to post, asking about motive. What is the motive to make a
777 full of people disappear. What was on board, or who was on board, that
would be worth this effort?

It's pretty close to beyond belief that this was just a "test run" to prove it
could be done.

But either way, there's no theory on motive offered here.

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mikeash
According to a conspiracy minded friend, there was a lot of gold on board that
would have been well worth stealing. I’ve also seen the theory put forth that
the plane was stolen in order to crash it into Ukraine, frame the Russians for
shooting it down, and turn international opinion against them.

(To be clear, I think both of these are completely looney tunes, but it’s what
I’ve heard.)

~~~
ablation
I've never heard either of those before!

Even if it was literally full of gold to its cargo capacity of 248,600 lbs
with gold, that's still only in the region of $4.7 billion at current prices.
Surely a drop in the ocean (no pun intended) for a nation/actor capable of
carrying out such a disappearing act.

~~~
mikeash
It’s been a while, but I think he guessed the gold was worth a couple hundred
million. I recall he thought it was a criminal act of great sophistication,
not a government thing. But I share your doubt here.

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ynniv
People have a lot of opinions on what could have happened, but I would like to
know why hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent investigating the
southern arc and at no point has anyone even considered investigating its
northern counterpart.

Edit: ... and this post was flagged off the first 14 pages within an hour. Not
"dead" per se, but clearly forgotten. Wouldn't want anyone to think too hard
about these things.

~~~
tristanj
It was considered and quickly ruled out. Look at the trajectory of the
northern arc [1]. It passes directly over India, which is covered by Indian
civilian and military ground radars. There are major airports along this
flight path. MH370 did not appear on civilian radar and the Indian military
also confirmed MH370 was not detected on military radar.

The northern arc also directly passes through Kashmir, which is contested by
India Pakistan and China. There were no reports of the plane passing through
this area. To put it in the words of an Indian military pilot [2]:

> _“There is no way or the slightest possibility of our radars’ having missed
> the plane,” the Indian pilot said. “We do not have an open air policy. Any
> blip, the slightest, has to be given attention. Most of our radars are semi-
> automated. If there is any aircraft not identified by virtue of its
> registration or identification, there will be an instant reaction at our
> end.”_

From this, we can conclude one of 1) There is a multinational conspiracy
concealing the true path of the plane 2) The immerstat data is falsified
(fails occam's razor) or 3) Rule out the northern arc.

[1]
[https://i1.wp.com/cache.emirates247.com/polopoly_fs/1.574328...](https://i1.wp.com/cache.emirates247.com/polopoly_fs/1.574328.1452549054!/image/image.jpg)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/experts-see-
ro...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/world/asia/experts-see-robust-radar-
along-missing-jets-potential-path.html)

~~~
ynniv
Yes, it was quickly ruled out. Was that the correct conclusion? How can we
confidently say that the plane didn't evade radar? What about SIA68?

~~~
tristanj
They've already found debris matching MH370 washed up in the Indian ocean.
Several of the debris are almost certainly from MH370. This is consistent with
the theory that MH370 crashed in the Indian ocean. Shouldn't this immediately
disprove the northern path theory? How does SIA68 fit into this?

~~~
ynniv
MH370 was near SIA68 when it disappeared, and SIA68 was near the northern arc
when MH370 should have been there. It's possible that MH370 could have hid
from casual radar by flying near SIA68 until it was in quieter airspace.

That's almost irrelevant though. The cost of investigating the northern arc
would be a hundred times less than what has been spent in the ocean.

~~~
tristanj
I don't understand. The SIA68 theory doesn't address the debris matching MH370
that washed up in the Indian ocean. Several of the debris are almost certainly
from MH370. The debris had barnacles implying they spent at least a year in
the sea.

~~~
DuskStar
From the article:

> By now, some 30 pieces have been found. Investigators assumed that after
> more than a year these would be covered in rich colonies of marine
> organisms, whose makeup would shed light on the path the pieces had taken
> through the ocean. To their surprise, they found none of them hosted
> organisms more than a couple of months old.

That gives some plausibility to "people moved debris to the ocean later",
though also to "marine growth is weird sometimes". It doesn't support the
statement "we have evidence confirming that MH370 crashed into the ocean at
approximately the time it disappeared".

~~~
Aloha
Also, I'm reasonably certain the aluminum is coated with what amount to an
anti-fouling coating, to prevent the growth of organisms on the surface.

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Ibethewalrus
Dumb question: how possible is that the plane landed in a country that wanted
to save paying $ millions for one?

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fouronnes3
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