
Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)? - cloudwalking
http://keithledgerwood.tumblr.com/post/79838944823/did-malaysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68
======
lifeisstillgood
I am not enthusiastic about jumping into speculation land, but I would be
interested in knowing if the possibility of this being a accident followed by
auto pilot is possible or totally disproven

My default assumption was they took off, an accident occurred that damaged
cockpit and forced a turnaround, the damage was so great that the crew were
unable to survive and turned on autopilot to stop an immediate crash, which
then flew for seven hours till fuel ended, presumably with passengers pounding
on the locked and hardened cockpit door.

So whilst I am in wild speculation territory I would like to know if there are
some experts who might be able to say "bird strikes cannot disable radios" or
"oxygen canisters do not leak" or "stewardesses can open the cockpit door" or
some such.

I tend towards cockup not conspiracy myself.

(I recognise I may have missed discussions covering this and apologise if it
is obvious)

~~~
pedalpete
I'm not familiar with the inner workings of planes, but from what I've
gathered, the timing of disabling the two tracking systems, which are on
either end of the plane, is just about the same time it takes to get from one
end of the plane to the other, and disable the 2nd tracking system (blackbox).

Therefore, it would be a great coincidence that both of these tracking systems
would be disabled at the same time. It seems therefore that the most logical
explanation is foul play.

I thought/hoped the same as you, that some sort of failure resulted in the
tracking systems failing as well, and then the plane crashed, but it sadly
doesn't seem as likely given the timing of events.

~~~
emeidi
So you say the pilot does not have switches in the cockpit to turn equipment
on or off? They have to WALK through the whole plane to turn devices on or
off?! Bollocks.

~~~
pedalpete
The black box is in the tail of the plane, it doesn't make any sense to wire
it through the whole plane so the pilot can switch it off from the cockpit.

I have no problem with your questioning my logic and my response, as I'm not
expert, but keep your bollocks to yourself.

~~~
snom380
It makes perfect sense when the top priority is being able to isolate
electrical systems in case of an electrical fault or an in-flight fire:
[http://www.askthepilot.com/malaysia-airlines-
flight-370/](http://www.askthepilot.com/malaysia-airlines-flight-370/)

------
jballanc
The folks over at airliners.net have pointed out that the 777's collision
avoidance system only works if both planes' transponders are turned on. That
doesn't mean this scenario is impossible, but it does raise the level of
sophistication required.

Sadly, I feel like whatever happened, the amount of sophistication involved
increasingly points toward the involvement of one or more state actors. If
that's the case, I'm starting to doubt that we'll ever find out what happened
to this plane...

~~~
ekianjo
> Sadly, I feel like whatever happened, the amount of sophistication involved
> increasingly points toward the involvement of one or more state actors. If
> that's the case, I'm starting to doubt that we'll ever find out what
> happened to this plane...

Indeed. And not just the "what", but the "why" as well.

~~~
Shivetya
time to figure out who was on that flight, perhaps it was someone so important
that taking a plane full of passengers was worth the cost.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
A team of freescale chip engineers for one.

Also, the answer might well be "what" instead of who. Many people have pointed
out that the cargo manifest hasn't been published, and that the airline
declared 50 less seats as available for boarding than the plane had. This
means it had several tons of cargo on board.

~~~
justincormack
Gold? needs to be something worth stealing a plane for.

~~~
jzwinck
Reportedly some 50 seats were blocked off to save weight for extra cargo.
Suppose each person plus their baggage weighs 80 kg, that's 4000 kg. Let's say
50% of that is taken up by containers, packing, and security devices, yielding
2000 kg of gold. It comes out to 90MM USD at today's prices. A lot of money,
but probably not enough to go to so much trouble.

~~~
unabridged
>50 seats were blocked off to save weight for extra cargo.

Combining this fact with the 20 Freescale engineers that were on board is it
possible they were transporting some kind of important prototype chips?

------
redbad
This is almost exactly how a plot device in Neal Stephenson's REAMDE plays
out. In almost exactly the same part of the world. Bizarre.

~~~
_nedR
Googled "Neal Stephenson README" expecting a thriller involving a government
agency plot to inject malicious code into a open-source crypto-library, and
the final commmit to the github project made by a hacker found murdered in
front of the computer in his basement.

Was disappointed.

~~~
general_failure
Reamde not readme

------
downandout
There is a realistic possibility that those piloting the plane used this
and/or other stealth techniques and landed intact. There are lots of groups
around the world that would love to have a working $250M aircraft. Maybe there
is a massive airplane chop shop that this went to, or someone wants to load it
up with explosives and fly it to some country they disagree with.

Unfortunately, whether it landed or not, the odds that the passengers are
alive are very small. A ransom demand would have been made by now.

~~~
nashequilibrium
It doesn't make any sense to kill 240 people, including babies and kids.
Especially if this is a terrorist act, they could not religiously justify
that, especially since these are mainly Chinese people rather than American.

~~~
houseofshards
my guess is that if it was hijacked by terrorists, the act is yet to come.
They are after the plane, not the people.

~~~
gnaffle
Anything is possible, but my guess is that if they were hijacked, they had a
plan that went wrong. It's far more likely, and it's happened before:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_961)

~~~
rolux
Add to that list:

\- A depressurization event, either as a result of an accident or a botched
hijacking (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522))

\- Pilot suicide, with a somewhat unexpected signature (see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EgyptAir_Flight_990))

Pretty much anything is possible, indeed. However, I'd recommend this post on
airliners.net for a comprehensive sanity check:
[http://www.airliners.net/aviation-
forums/general_aviation/re...](http://www.airliners.net/aviation-
forums/general_aviation/read.main/6027829/1/#13)

~~~
gnaffle
Thanks! That's a good summary post.

------
confluence
> _There are too many oddities in this whole story that don’t make sense if
> this theory isn’t the answer in my opinion._

Confirmation bias?

Slow burn fire randomly taking out communications systems and electronics
undetected over a long period of time. Pilots freak out and head West for the
coast, program way points on autopilot. Fire then cracks the hull, leading to
a slow depressurization, incapacitating crew. Plane heads into the Indian
ocean with all onboard unconscious or dead, until it runs out of fuel, and
crashes into the ocean.

~~~
tomelders
1\. Zig Zaging flight path between legitimate waypoints after transponders
were turned off, plus some pronounced altitude changes suggest that Autopilot
was not engaged.

2\. Pilots turned off transponders before their last communication.

~~~
confluence
1\. Waypoints far west outside of primary are conjecture. Can be explained by
autopilot shutdown due to onboard emergency.

2\. Not proven. ACARS can fail without pilot intervention. That's confirmation
bias.

------
72deluxe
"Snuck" is a strange American word, the same as "dove" instead of "dived", eg.
"he dove into the pool" instead of "he dived into the pool". I would read
"snuck" as "sneaked". Another weird word is "gotten". And another strange and
irritating phrase that is sneaking its way into English over here is "for
free", but "free" is not a price so instead of "buy 3 eggs for £2.00", you get
weird phrases "sign up now and get this egg for free", whereas it should be
"sign up now and get this egg free" or "sign up now and get this egg for
nothing".

Always interesting the difference between the languages over time.

With reference to the flight, I truly hope they find it somewhere safe.

~~~
gpjt
"gotten" definitely sounds odd to me (I'm from England) but it's worth noting
that we do keep that form in "forgotten".

Presumably both were acceptable over here at some stage. "I see no reason why
gunpowder and treason should ever be forgot."

~~~
paulannesley
The word “forgot” was chosen to rhyme with “plot”, so may not have been a
normal use of the word/form.

[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes#Quotes_about_Fawkes](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes#Quotes_about_Fawkes)

(Now you've made me want to watch V for Vendetta again!)

~~~
dragonwriter
Its worth noting that use of "forgot" instead of "forgotten" is also found in
the first line of Auld Lang Syne, where it isn't rhymed with anything.

------
akumen
Good theory. Yours is as good as anyone's at this point in time. Incredible,
how we think that our tech is so advanced yet a commercial jet can go
completely missing.

MH370 makes for an incredible setup to 'Lost'.

~~~
yaeger
I think this whole thing could have been prevented if only the tracking
systems could not have been turned off manually.

Why is that even possible? An oversight? If you think about just how many
liberties we passengers had to give up after 9/11 worldwide, why was this
still there? We can't take any liquids on board anymore but if the pilot
wants, he can make the plane disappear at will? Yeah, the liquid thing was
really the only security risk here...

Imho, tracking of planes should never be able to be turned off. Why should it?
Could there ever be a situation were it would be vital to have these systems
not running?

~~~
gambiting
>>but if the pilot wants, he can make the plane disappear at will?

The pilot is the captain of the airship and can take any decision deemed
necessary for the safety of the aircraft and its passengers and that decision
is final(this is actually defined in the airspace law, would need to look for
a quote). That means that the pilot has to have the ability to turn off any
and all electrical parts of the aircraft if that would ensure its safety(in
case of a fire). That power cannot and should not be taken away from the pilot
- you don't want a plane crash due to a fire which couldn't have been put out
because the burning thing was always-on due to some regulations.

~~~
imodgames
I don't know about international aviation law, but in the U.S. the text is:
91.3 Responsibility and authority of the pilot in command. (a) The pilot in
command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority
as to, the operation of that aircraft. (b) In an in-flight emergency requiring
immediate action, the pilot in command may deviate from any rule of this part
to the extent required to meet that emergency.

This does not mean pilots can break rules as long as they make sure to do so
safely, but if a situation is unsafe they may break all rules necessary to
make it safe again. Furthermore, pilots are required to inform ATC of any
deviations they made from the regs or ATC instructions (of course this is one
of the rules they're allowed to break if making such a radio call would be
unsafe). Again, this is only for the U.S., but other countries do tend to look
us for how to do aviation safety.

------
fnsa
A theory is that the cargo area of the plane contained valuable goods: gold,
silver, diamonds, etc and that's what the hijackers were after.

From this: [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-15/missing-
malaysian-f...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-15/missing-malaysian-
flight-mystery-deepens-pilot-investigated-foul-play-suspected)

the 777 can have up to 25 tons worth of cargo payload.

25 tons of gold is worth ~ $1B, that's quite a bit more than the value of the
plane itself.

~~~
jdimov
No one in their right mind would attempt to transport 25 tons of gold on a
commercial passenger flight.

~~~
pedalpete
How do you transport 25 tons of gold across land and sea?

My guess is air freight is the safest method, does it matter if it goes on a
DHL 777 or a Commercial 777? Either way, the plane could be hijacked.

But I suspect you'd have somebody with an insurance claim for $1 billion in
gold, and an insurance company going bankrupt as a result.

~~~
jdimov
Yes, but Malaysia PM said there's only mangosteens in the cargo.

~~~
pktgen
Tomorrow's headline: no mangosteens in cargo.

~~~
jdimov
And then we'll have conspiracy theories about what happened to the mangosteens
en-route.

------
karterk
Good analysis, but I'm skeptical that this is not already accounted for in the
military radars. Given that so many flights fly everyday in almost every
route, it becomes really easy for any country to sneak an aircraft anywhere.
Such a glaring loop hole should not exist. And we are talking about crossing
the borders monitored by multiple countries here.

------
saalweachter
I really wonder how much of this rampant speculation is just people
desperately wanting 300 people not to have died, either at all or just for no
reason at all. Secret terrorist masterminds secretly hijacking a plane is more
comforting than "sometimes shit happens and people die and there's nothing
anyone can do".

~~~
joshgel
Great, except where are the dead people? And how did the plane keep flying for
7 hours after they were "dead"? Too many unanswered questions, me thinks.

~~~
ccarpenterg
Perhaps the plane didn't keep flying for 7 hours but it kept floating on the
water for those 7 hours (at least that part/device).

~~~
mediaman
My understanding is that it was the Rolls Royce jet engines that were
reporting to satellites for several hours, and that they were reporting some
basic maintenance data about themselves (such as whether they were on and
functioning). So if the engine had sat in the ocean for five hours and still
somehow reported home, it would not have reported that they were still on and
functioning.

------
KaiserPro
Nice idea, however I'd hope that modern radar is able to detect two aircraft
of that size flying close together.

Unless the perpetrators know the various limitations of each radar
installation?

~~~
LordHumungous
Maybe, but would the operators have the imagination to suspect it was
something other than a glitch?

~~~
cnvogel
It's likely that this could be detected by looking at recorded radar-data as a
above-average number of "glitches" at this particular track.

But then, I also assume that modern radar systems have some way to
automatically filter displayed tracks for "glitches" or temporary loss of
contact to a airplane signal to avoid distracting or tiring out airspace
controllers.

------
rjbwork
An interesting theory and article, but I can't help but feel like this reads
too much like one of the classic conspiracy theory articles about
9-11/lizards/aliens/Area 51, etc.

~~~
davidw
That's what _they_ want you to think.

------
pitt1980
Finding Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is a problem google could solve by
crowdsourcing the search on the google doodle

They could use an algorithm to generate different satellite images through the
possible search images as the google doodle, they could put a toggle button,
'anything look like a plane or wreckage here?' Yes/no. For every yes, show it
to more people, see if they agree

I’m sure google has better algorithm experts to figure out what the best
images to show are than I can figure out,

but google can find that plane

I've already submitted this to google via email at proposals@google.com as
suggested on
[http://www.google.com/doodles/about](http://www.google.com/doodles/about)

I suspect there are people on HN who are fewer degrees of seperation from who
figures out the google doodle than I am though

If you happen to be one of those people, who might be able to send a personal
email, or send a text, or make a phone call to someone who could advocate for
that being the google doodle, I would appreciate that

needless to say, if google was able to help solve this mystery, I would
imagine that would be pretty good publicity for the company

Thanks for your consideration

(sorry for the spam)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7414422](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7414422)

~~~
pktgen
Isn't Tomnod doing this already (although I don't think they've updated their
images to the newest area)?

~~~
pitt1980
Think of the eyeballs Google could add to the project by making it the doodle
though

~~~
pktgen
If Tomnod updates to include the latest areas, couldn't Google just link to
Tomnod on their home page? It doesn't make sense to duplicate the effort IMO.

Of course, they'd need to talk to Tomnod first to make sure they're ready for
that kind of traffic, as it seems they've already had scaling issues, but
hopefully this doesn't pose too many problems.

~~~
pitt1980
yeah, taking into consideration this objection
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7414927](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7414927)

seems like that might be the neatest solution

------
jmnicolas
It may be seen as heartless for the victims, but I still find comforting that
in this day and age of widespread surveillance technology, one of the most
tracked thing on earth can still disappear and leave everybody clueless.

It gives me hope that there will be still a chance for a resistance movement
when the time will come.

------
thewarrior
I remember reading that when the Israelis mounted their daring rescue mission
at Entebbe in Uganda their three aircraft flew in formation so that it would
appear as a single airplane on radar.

------
gadders
Just a quick question, but I'd have thought the number of airports where a
plane the size of MH370 could land would be quite small.

Is it not possible to work out the number of airports within it's range, and
examine those?

~~~
mittermayr
here you go:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/03/15/mh370_the_...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/03/15/mh370_the_634_runways_where_malaysian_airlines_flight_could_have_landed.html)

~~~
gadders
Someone already thought of it! Perfect, thank you.

~~~
gadders
And a friend just showed me this, which has an interactive map:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/where-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/03/where-
malaysia-370-might-have-landed-an-interactive-
map/284445/?google_editors_picks=true)

------
wil421
If it was really hijacked then where are all of the calls from frantic
passengers calling family members like on 9/11\. I am calling BS on the hijack
landing scenario. Do we really live in a word where our first thoughts are
always terrorism.

I guess the government propaganda machine is really working when our only
conclusion to things is it must be terrorism. More funding for the spooks!

~~~
ceejayoz
Not many cell towers in the middle of the ocean.

~~~
wil421
Who uses a cellphone on a plane anyway?

I am talking about satellite phones they put behind some seats in commercial
airplanes.

[http://www.usairways.com/en-
US/traveltools/intheair/business...](http://www.usairways.com/en-
US/traveltools/intheair/businesstools/phones.html)

------
Flammy
I'd really like to hear another knowledgeable person's analysis of this
theory. At least its different than the endless
hijackers/bombing/suicide/aliens run around.

------
coherentpony
Again, merely wild speculation.

I'd be ok with people not upvoting submissions that do nothing more than fear
mongering.

~~~
gvb
It is a very interesting theory and plausible (more plausible than a cockpit
fire IMHO).

~~~
coherentpony
I didn't say it wasn't either a) interesting; or b) plausible. "Interesting"
also doesn't really do anybody any favours here; 'plausible' is the only
really relevant qualifier at play here. In fact, I'm well aware there are many
plausible (that are simultaneously interesting) theories. But they're just
that: theories. Crowd-sourcing theories _may_ be helpful. Crowd-sourcing
actual data is probably a lot _more_ helpful.

------
mittermayr
What surprises me the most: In today's world, doesn't someone have access to
global, real-time satellite data that goes down to 1-3m resolution? I thought
we already accepted this as fact. Wouldn't such data provide visuals?

~~~
Houshalter
Yes, but it's not like every patch of land is monitored at all times. A
satellite can only point it's camera at one place at a time.

~~~
mittermayr
surely so, but in the odd case that even one single image might have a plane
on it, on the path the OP currently discusses here, might be enough to confirm
further travel. the full step-by-step transition of the plan wouldn't even be
necessary. just one shot with that plane. from somewhere.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Global? Likely. Realtime? We're not _quite_ that far into the future. Just try
and estimate the bandwidth for the biggest security camera of all times: at
1-3 meters resolution per pixel, _worldwide_ , that's a lot of pixels (about
510 072 000 000 000 per frame, give or take - that comes out at about half an
exabyte per frame, if I'm not mistaken). Take ten of these, and you've
generated as much data as the whole Internet does in a _day_. Oh, and you also
need to store it somewhere, but this is a minor issue (in comparison to the
above).

------
Symmetry
Interesting, but this would seem to chiefly expand the space of possible
explanations for what went wrong by showing how the plain could have gotten
into central Asia. It explains some of the bizarre behavior of the plane, but
not all of it. So it's eliminated some of the burdensome details about the
flight behavior at the cost of introducing burdensome details about
complicated, secret, and successful planning. As a result, I'm even less sure
about what happened to the plane now, but of course if that reflects my actual
state of knowledge it's a good thing.

------
linksbro
Incredible theory. This entire situation is really a complete mystery.

~~~
ekianjo
If the plane has flown following most of that 777 trail, then it should at
least narrow down a little where it went... but it's very unsure we even find
out where it went. If this was planned from the very beginning, it would be
well hidden by now.

I wonder what happened to the passengers - and if anyone realized what was
happening after several hours.

~~~
HNaTTY
Sadly, I find it hard to believe that passengers wouldn't have tried to use
cellphones, and I'm inclined to think that the cabin became depressurized
before the last report of contact (a ping off of an inmarsat sattelite) which
is reported as 7.5 hours after takeoff.

------
limnothrissa
I think Keith is on the right track (excuse the pun).

1\. The weather. Check on that. On a clear night it is possible to sneak up
behind and tail an aircraft. Night Fighters did it all the time in WW2. And
they had to get close enough and hang on and to check "friend or foe"! 2\. Not
sure where the FIR boundary was, but if it was close to their westward track
(last radio call was a handover) more doubt on the ground. 3\. They could have
listened in to the radio calls of SIA68 with their radio. That would have
given them height and position info too. So long as they did not transmit,
nobody could have picked up anything from that. 4\. If they had also switched
off all the navigation lights nobody on the ground, or in SIA would be likely
to have seen anything - rear view from a commercial aircraft is nil! Two
aircraft at 35000 feet sound the same as one. 5\. Timing on one other score
was perfect. Night flight when radar operators are dozy, landing just before
dawn - time to camouflage the plane from satellites, and a diversion of a
China sea crash to confuse everyone.

Good thinking, keep it up. Looking forward to more insights!

------
lesterbuck
If currently deployed military radars cannot distinguish between one and two
777s, we have a lot more to worry about than what happened to MH370.

------
tn13
This is not an hijack terrorism. Terrorism is all about showing off,
theatrics, fear. No one would make a plane disappear for the sake of
terrorism. I have only two theories

1\. China or some other country shot it down by mistake and trying to cover
up. 2\. Something of immense importance was present on that plane or may be a
person.

In either cases substantial involvement of some state needs to be there.

~~~
keypusher
That is not necessarily true. If it is terrorism, it's possible this isn't
over, and that the plane will be used in a future high-profile attack. And if
the target was passengers, cargo, or something else entirely I don't think
that logically leads to it being state-sponsored.

~~~
tn13
If the plane is stolen for a future attack they have unnecessarily taken too
much of trouble \- First plan a theft which is incredibly difficult that
hijacking and then ramming it somewhere \- Then actually keep it hidden while
half the world is searching for it. \- Get rid of those passengers \- Hiding a
Boeing 777 is not same as hiding a cookie jar. The plane will need a runway,
fuel etc. which needs to be provided for and can be easily tracked. \-
Terrorism is all about surprise. There is no surprise involved here. All the
countries will now be much more cautious with any object that appears on their
radar.

------
mariuolo
After all the revelations of the last few days, is there anything it may not
have done?

------
pogue
All these theories... It's obviously at the bottom of the ocean. If not, it's
here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y)

~~~
pizza
a part of me wants the plane to suddenly re-appear exactly where it went
missing with everyone on the plane unaware that it was lost

~~~
drawkbox
Langoliers, it is there, just slightly behind time.

------
rrtwo
Waiting for a crossover of this route with this
[http://project.wnyc.org/runways/](http://project.wnyc.org/runways/)

~~~
ohadron
This assumes 5000ft of stopping distance and a high density runway, which is
far more than really needed. Especially considering that the operators of this
flight are willing to take more risks than usual commercial flights.

There are probably thousands of additional landing strips, even more if the
hijackers don't require keeping the plane in perfect flying condition.

------
emeidi
Anybody else noticed that "Keith Ledgerwood" has exactly one post on his
Tumbler blog? Conspiracy theorist looking for five seconds of Internet fame?

~~~
3cham
Found his Twitter here:
[https://twitter.com/keithledgerwood](https://twitter.com/keithledgerwood)

he just need some space to write and tumblr was his choice

------
aaron695
I understand there will always be crackpot theories but why are they getting
up-voted.

State sponsored? WTF. This would be an act of war. If you want to go to war
why wouldn't you just attack the other countries. Why screw around stealing
300 international citizens first?

Pretty simple stuff, most likely an accident.

Or possibly a political/mental act by a very small group/one person that got
lucky.

------
LammyL
This notion that mh370 was flying behind the Singapore jet to avoid radar is
far fetched. Is the simple explanation much more likely that primary and
secondary radar were both tracking the Singapore jet and the data wasn't
matched properly? If the two jets were flying in tandem as you suggest,
wouldn't you expect two hits on primary radar?

~~~
ZoF
In theory if one plane ghosted the other by staying quite literally behind it
(in relation to the radar, not behind it front to back) there would only be
one blip.

Difficult to the point of high improbability? Methinks yes.

------
danielschonfeld
If they shut off the transponder, which we know they did, how would they get
the traffic information on their NDs? It goes away when you turn off the
transponder. To the best of my knowledge that applies to both Mode-S
interrogations and ADS/B ones.

~~~
gvb
The flights through that area are scheduled, it would be trivial to figure out
which flights go in the direction you want to go and thus can hide behind.
After that, you precalculate the intercept to a plane that works timing-wise
before you take off. Non-trivial, but simple enough to do - on ground ahead of
time you can get a computer to do all the work.

Once you go dark, you fly the traditional way with GPS and nav aides (GPS,
VORs, etc, are broadcast, so you can use them passively) backed up by manual
nav with time, speed, and bearings. Note that handheld (throw it on the dash)
pilot grade GPSes are readily available and relatively cheap.

Intercepting the target aircraft is do-able via visual contact if your
navigation is reasonably good and the target aircraft is on time.

If you have help on the ground, they could use FlightAware to update the
hijacking crew via something like HF radio, again a passive receive on the
hijacked aircraft. This would be very helpful for the hijacking crew to
improve their intercept by adjusting their speed so that they sneak up under
and behind the target aircraft.

Edit: As thekevan points out
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7416153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7416153)),
the hijackers could use a ADS/B receiver (SDR and laptop or equivalent) to
receive the position data from the target aircraft. This would make it pretty
easy to form up on them. Again, this is passive (the target aircraft
broadcasts its ADS/B information).

------
fishyninja
How secure is the 777s flight management system? Could you hijack the controls
(remotely or with temporary physical access) and prevent manual overrides when
the change is noticed?

------
sschueller
Isn't it possible that one passenger may have left his cell phone on?

Maybe if you get all of the passengers numbers and check if any of the phones
connected to a tower you could locate it?

~~~
emeidi
First of all, hijackers would have threatened passengers to give them their
mobile phones.

If the plane indeed was landed on a remote airport with the passengers alive,
the hijackers would have stripped the passengers of their clothes to ensure
nobody could bring weapons or devices with them.

By now, most mobile phones (even the Nokia developing world ones) would have
been out of battery.

~~~
userbinator
I find it a little disturbing that the passengers would be so docile,
especially after 9/11.

~~~
rafe33
There is a theory that the rapid ascent to 45,000 feet was done to deprive the
passengers of oxygen and incapacitate them.

~~~
jimktrains2
From what I've read that theory is bullocks because 45k is still in the safety
margins the plane was designed for.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
Wikipedia puts the service ceiling at 43,100 ft (13,140 m).

I imagine it could surpass that though without depressurization.

------
cylinder
FYI CNN just discussed this theory on-air, of course didn't discuss any
technical details, just called it "outlandish" and didn't give any credit to
OP.

------
f1nch3r
Doing this is sure cheaper and easier than building a bomber capable of
deploying a nuclear weapon or another type of WMD. Definitely cheaper than
building an ICBM.

------
mh370
I've got some animations of flight 68's path here:
[http://findmh370.tumblr.com/](http://findmh370.tumblr.com/)

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houseofshards
An aviation noob here. I have a question:

If the flight starts another journey from wherever it is, will it be possible
to track it via radar ?

~~~
robmcm
Apparently the rolls royce engines have a remote debugging ability that was
not enabled on this flight, however it was still pinging home which is how
they first noticed the course change. They had disabled all the other
trackers, so if they were watching the news the chances are they have disabled
these too.

[EDIT] ACARS - [http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/16/satcom-acars-
explained/](http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/16/satcom-acars-explained/)

~~~
emeidi
If the plane is parked in working condition somewhere on this planet, thanks
to the media coverage the hijackers now know that the jet engines will phone
home the moment they start them.

But then again, this is hypothetical nonsense. The plane most probably crashed
into the ocean.

------
wil421
I seriously doubt the plane ever reached land. Sadly, we will most likely find
the plane at the bottom of the ocean.

------
Redlen
If this happened in North America would NORAD have been able to keep track of
the plane?

------
philip1209
Would hydrophones be able to pick up the sound of an aircraft crashing into
the ocean?

------
GotAnyMegadeth
Doesn't the NSA have all of the GPS tracking data for all of the smart phones
on the plane?

------
codr
Much conspiracy.

------
headgasket
who is is john galt

------
d0ugie
Why are we still looking for this damn plane? Thirty countries involved?
Thirty nation's worth of ships, planes and satellite analysts, flying and
sailing around and for what, some debris and a box? To buy the families
closure of some sort? Maybe a defect in the 777? To keep hope alive that the
passengers might be alive and safe somewhere captured by reasonable terrorists
with a lot of food?

Doesn't seem worth the fuel.

These black boxes from what I heard stop pinging after a month. Can we stop
then, and just move on in life until one day some seat cushion washes up in
California and have a moment if silence? Without it pinging, just how wide an
area can a ship in substantial depth detect a wingtip?

I realize you didn't, but if you ask me, they should just frame that copilot,
say they found on his flight simulator evidence that he intended to make that
"deliberate" turn every night, disabling the transponder with the ctrl+shift+T
combination and purposefully crashing hours later each time in a different
location, with known Islamic terrorists on his WhatsApp and Skype, or a
suicide note, then call off the hunt, pay the families off for failing to
screen this guy effectively, bam, there's your closure, problem solved.

/insensitivity

~~~
VolatileVoid
Why?

I don't know, maybe to make aviation safer so it doesn't happen again,
whatever "it" may be.

Why should Twitter bother debugging outages? Why should Facebook bother
issuing post-mortems when bad things take their systems out? Just chalk it up
to solar flares or blame some rogue developer and shrug your shoulders.

