Well, the story of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is becoming stranger. Based on what we know now the Malaysian authorities are
- Idiots
- Embarrassed
- Hiding something
or, possibly, all of the above. Rather than going to the north and east, the craft was apparently flying west as indicated by the map above:
(CNN) — More than four days since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared over Southeast Asia, Malaysian officials not only don’t know what happened to the plane, they don’t seem sure where to look.
On Wednesday, officials announced they had once again expanded the search area. It now covers 27,000 square miles, more than double the size of the area being searched just a day before.
Such a dramatic expansion at this stage of the investigation is troubling, said CNN aviation expert Richard Quest.
“At this stage in the investigation and search and rescue, I would have expected to see by now a much more defined understanding of what the route was, where the plane was headed and a narrowing of the search consequent upon that,” he said on CNN’s “New Day.”
There are all sorts of possibilities including catastrophic equipment malfunction, error, and hijacking. Right now it appears that they’re spinning their wheels.
With multiple redundant backup systems, it is hard for many people to understand that something can go wrong. An engineering disaster is a situation that was not planned. If somebody had thought it could happen, they would have built a contingency for it.
I would not automatically rule out equipment malfunction because there are multiple redundant systems. These things can and do fail.
I keep remembering that I’ve heard an investigator of such disasters stating that they almost always involve a cascade of things going wrong.
The transponders being turned off puzzles me in pinning anything on merely a mechanical failure. Also, speculation that the plane may have deliberatly turned ‘left,’ away from it’s designated flight path, poses another unanswerable question mark.
If one wanted to entertain a conspiracy theory mind set, it’s interesting to note that Iran is not too far away, with the plane having more than enough fuel to go the distance. One more thing — there have been some sporadic ground reports of people sighting a large, low flying plane that night — some say at a curious 3000 foot level — below the radar.
I’ll venture a guess that we’ll never know.
Chinese satellite pictures are showing some large objects that could be debris from the plane — near the flight path it was last heard from.
People have been saying it would be pretty darned surprising if somebody didn’t see something from a military satellite.
I agree Dave. However, it’s interesting that the Chinese were the ones having the first eyes on a potential debris field.
I don’t find it at all surprising. I suspect we have the most eyes on the Gulf of Mexico.
According to at least one expert the reported dimensions don’t match any structure on the plane. Of course the usual caveats.
I think the Chinese are actually looking for the plane – it’s quite unusual to “waste” satellite photography on open ocean….