Flight 370

[bobbittle]

If it went into the sea, what are the chances she went in whole? I mean, stayed intact following impact with the water?
If it isn't at sea...I find it a little disturbing that it is this easy to lose a commercial jetliner over land in the 21st Century.

To the first, I find it very, very hard to imagine how something that big, that fragile, hitting the water at any sort of speed to go in whole. I don't think it's possible.

To the second, if the transponder was off civilian radars wouldn't be able to track it, that's my understanding at least.

 

[Lectric102002]

And my husband designs engines for planes.

Nice. Tell him we run Rolls Royce.

 

[mbills2223]

Barring some "Captain Sullivan vs the Hudson River" - type miracle...I have to think the plane didn't go to the bottom whole.

Makes you realize just how impressive that really was.

 

[Lectric102002]

To the first, I find it very, very hard to imagine how something that big, that fragile, hitting the water at any sort of speed to go in whole. I don't think it's possible.

After falling from FL350 to the ocean, that water would be like a 50 foot thick concrete wall. The plane would break apart.

To the second, if the transponder was off civilian radars wouldn't be able to track it, that's my understanding at least.

They wouldn't be able to identify it by the info programmed into the transponder. It would still show up on radar.

 

[88GT]

To the first, I find it very, very hard to imagine how something that big, that fragile, hitting the water at any sort of speed to go in whole. I don't think it's possible.

Angle of attack plays into it. It can go in a whole lot faster level than nose-first. Biggest risk is nose dropping below water line which causes the tail end to flip up and over. That said, I doubt it was "drivable" as it was going down.

too much redundancy in the flight communications to have that kind of complete failure without some sort of catastrophic, total devastation.

 

[dyerwatcher]

I flew to Houston today thinking security would be bad. It was a non event. Wish I could say the same for the Tri state. It sucked.

 

[CathyInBlue]

I don't believe the flight even existed… yet.

 

[Bunnykid68]

Bush did it while trying to slow Putin down

 

[GunSlinger]

I'm not saying it was aliens...but just saying it must have been aliens.

 

[ratfortman]

I knew eventually we would arrive at the alien theories!

"STENDEC" was the biggest of them all

 

[forgop]

Oh great, another forum I visit with a thread speculating what happened....by people for the most part that know nothing about airplanes and listen to news reports from people that know nothing.

 

[atvdave]

Iranian Aboard Missing Jet 'Not Likely' a Terrorist: Official - NBC News

 

[fullauto 45]

Small Nuke. Vaporized everyone and everything.

 

[Mark 1911]

Small Nuke. Vaporized everyone and everything.

But could something like that go undetected? I would guess "no", but would be guessing.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

I think you get a ring for a CDMA or GSM phone whether it's available or not, then it will go to voice mail. The old AMPS/TACS phones would come back with a message that the phone was not available. So, the phones "ringing" doesn't mean anything anymore. If the phones were live, they could be traced to the tower on which they were currently registered, and all this search area stuff would be nonsense. More than two towers, and you almost have GPS accuracy. I hope these searchers haven't failed to realize this.

 

[jkaetz]

Maybe someone here can test this.. If you have 2 cellphones, take out the battery of one of them. Then call the number and see it that cell phone with ring on your end. My wife and I both have iPhones, so I can not take the battery's out. I would like to know if it works.

personally I would think the phone will ring on our end. I know I have ran my battery dead before on a job, and when I got back to the hotel to charge it I had like 10 missed calls, and 5 messages. But I would still like someone to test it out.

I think you get a ring for a CDMA or GSM phone whether it's available or not, then it will go to voice mail. The old AMPS/TACS phones would come back with a message that the phone was not available. So, the phones "ringing" doesn't mean anything anymore. If the phones were live, they could be traced to the tower on which they were currently registered, and all this search area stuff would be nonsense. More than two towers, and you almost have GPS accuracy. I hope these searchers haven't failed to realize this.

This is the key. If the phone was active on any tower, they would be able to trace it to that tower at least.

Domestic phones will go immediately to voicemail if powered off, in flight mode, or otherwise unavailable. Once they leave their native network, all bets are off on how they behave. One thing that is for sure, if the plane was at 35,000 feet over the ocean when the event happened, no one was making any calls. Even without the altitude in play, there are no cell towers in the ocean.

 

[HoughMade]

4 8 15 16 23 42

 

[avboiler11]

4 8 15 16 23 42

That's my best guess - Desmond was too slow putting the numbers into the computer.

Seriously, as a professional pilot all the speculation about this just makes me shake my head.

Bomb or other in-flight breakup = HUGE debris field.
Even if it hit the water at stupid high velocity and nose-down, there would be debris.
Hijacking? You don't just 'hide' a Boeing 777 and 200+ occupants.
Total loss of power? A Boeing 777 has amazing redundancy in this area...multiple generators per engine, in-flight APU, ship batteries, and a ram air turbine that deploys automatically and provides essential power.

The reports today that the airplane turned and flew west as a primary radar return (ie. transponder turned off) are very puzzling. If in fact true, that pretty much points to an intentional act...because even if you're *******s and elbows working a failure or emergency, you're not just gonna truck west a few hundred miles - you're gonna find someplace to land.

The whole thing is weird.

So until more information is found, I blame DHARMA.

or Bush.

 

[CathyInBlue]

I blame Greg.

 

[Scuba591]

With no indication and no plane... who's to say it's not still intact and landed somewhere. There are lots of things you can do with a plane.