Saturday, 8 March 2014

Malaysia Airlines loses contact with passenger jet. 239 onboard.

quote [ A passenger flight carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing is missing and has likely run out of fuel, Malaysia Airlines said Saturday ]

Doesn't sound like any sort of Mayday or distress received. Not looking good :(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26492748

https://www.google.com.au/maps/dir/Kuala+Lumpur,+Federal+Territory+of+Kuala+Lumpur,+Malaysia/Beijing,+China/
[SFW] [+8 Informative]
[by underdog@2:07amGMT]

Comments

buzhidao said @ 3:17am GMT on 8th Mar [Score:4 Informative]
i like this site- the professional pilots rumor network. not much discussion now, but sure there will be plenty as more info becomes available

http://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/535538-mh370-contact-lost.html
underdog said @ 3:27am GMT on 8th Mar [Score:1 Good]
lilmookieesquire said @ 5:43am GMT on 8th Mar [Score:2 Informative]
The Vietnamese media and Vietnamese Navy is now stating that Malaysia Airlines flight 370, a 777-200 operating from Kuala Lumpur (WMKK/KUL) to Beijing (ZBAA/PEK), has crashed into the South China Sea after going missing two hours after departure, though evidence of a crash has not yet been shared with the public. The flight had on board 227 passengers with a crew of 12. The aircraft’s registration is 9M-MRO.
Contact with the flight was lost by Subang Air Traffic Control on Friday at 1:40pm EST. Search and rescue teams had been activated and are currently looking for signs of the aircraft’s location, with Vietnamese Navy confirming that it went down int he water approximately 153 miles south of Phu Quoc Island.

...

http://www.nycaviation.com/2014/03/breaking-malaysian-airlines-777-200-missing
mechanical contrivance said @ 4:05pm GMT on 8th Mar [Score:2 Insightful]
Look on the bright side. Plane crashes are rare enough to be newsworthy.
sanepride said @ 4:34pm GMT on 8th Mar
...and it's worth noting that despite huge increases in air traffic and passenger miles in the past few decades, fatal accidents have only gotten rarer.
b said @ 2:56am GMT on 8th Mar
This is one of the reasons I don't like flying. I know statistically it's one of the safest ways to travel. But when something does go wrong and a plane crashes, hundreds die all in one go. Damn.
underdog said @ 3:03am GMT on 8th Mar
Up until last year I was flying at least 2000 miles a week for work, mostly in smaller aircraft so it became little more than a taxi ride. Still gives me the willies when things like this happen though. Scarily, lack of any distress call may indicate sudden catastrophic event (i.e. bomb)
midden said @ 10:43pm GMT on 8th Mar
Something like 95-100, 11/100,000 people die every day in car accidents in the US. Not quite as all-at-once as 239, but it's every single day.

On the up side, the high, so far, was in 1972 when it was 151/day, 26/100,000 people. So we're at less than half that per capita. Also, we're now at about 1/4 the number of deaths per million miles driven. Yay, seat-belts, yay airbags, yah headrests, yay no more steel dashboards, yay crumple zones and collapsing steering columns, yay anti-lock breaks!

I do miss my 1969 Valiant, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
underdog said @ 3:48am GMT on 8th Mar
From bnowire.com:

List of nationalities on board missing plane
Posted on 03-08 at 03:20:43 CST
14 nationalities:

China: 153, including 1 infant
Malaysia: 38
Indonesia: 12
Australia: 7
France: 3
USA: 4, including 1 infant
New Zealand: 2
Ukraine: 2
Canada: 2
Russia: 1
Italy: 1
Taiwan: 1
Netherlands: 1
Austria: 1
kitten said @ 3:50am GMT on 8th Mar
http://www.china.org.cn/world/2014-03/08/content_31714878.htm

Does this mean the plane didn't crash or...can you detect a signal of a crashed plane?
underdog said @ 3:55am GMT on 8th Mar
A large commercial aircraft would have several different types of locater devices. By now authorities should know exactly where it is. Very strange that it hasn't been found already.
graham said @ 3:58am GMT on 8th Mar
.org.cn? srsly?
sanepride said @ 4:06am GMT on 8th Mar
Airliners are equipped with emergency locator transmitters. Yes, they are activated on collision or when submerged in water. The plane almost certainly crashed.
kitten said @ 4:16am GMT on 8th Mar
Ya on second thought what a dumb question to ask...
underdog said @ 4:14am GMT on 8th Mar
It was only last week that Islam extremists attacked a train station in China leaving dozens dead. Malaysia has a majority Muslim religion. This is not looking very good at all. I thought we were getting over this shit?
papango said @ 4:27am GMT on 8th Mar [Score:2 Underrated]
I love a Muslim bash as much as the next person (towel heads, amiright?), but at this stage we don't know what happened to the plane, and so far no terrorist group has jumped up to claim responsibility. Which is something I would expect to happen because terrorism only works if people are afraid of you, not if they're unsure what happened or have to spend months piecing it together from fragments.

It's also worth noting that the 'Islam extremists' in Kunming are Uighur nationalists and their violence is related to the ongoing unrest in Xinjiang, and not a desire to see China take up Sharia.
underdog said @ 4:32am GMT on 8th Mar
Yeah, that wasn't meant as a Muslim bash of any sort, rather a killing of innocent people bash. I don't think the Uighurs have claimed responsiblility for Kunming yet either.
sanepride said @ 4:48am GMT on 8th Mar
I wouldn't necessarily take the Chinese government's word that Uighurs carried out that attack, and certainly wouldn't make any assumptions on the cause of the probable loss of flight MH370. Any numbers of scenarios could result in a sudden catastrophic event, accidental as well as deliberate.
underdog said @ 4:54am GMT on 8th Mar
Point well taken, and I would rather eat my own foot than get in an argument with Papango. I was merely speculatively joining dots with recent events and venting my frustration with innocent people being killed. I withdraw my comment and will open a beer by way of apology.
sanepride said @ 4:57am GMT on 8th Mar
No apology needed, but a beer sounds good.
papango said @ 5:23am GMT on 8th Mar
Ideally, it'll turn out that the pilots just took everyone on board out for drinks at a beach-side bar in Malaysia. (la la la la I can't hear you la la la).

The incidents that immediately sprang to mind when I heard about this were Air France Flight 447 back in 2009 and then TWA Flight 800. Terrorist attacks tend to be a bit more flashy.
AssBastard said @ 3:43pm GMT on 8th Mar
I've a friend that is a flight attendant, and as heartbreaking as it is to see something horrible like this happen, it's worse for her and the entire flight crew family.
sanepride said @ 8:51pm GMT on 8th Mar
pleaides said @ 7:07am GMT on 9th Mar
ABC Australia is reporting that the Malaysian Govt is investigating the possibility of a terrorist attack.
underdog said @ 3:25pm GMT on 9th Mar
*bites tongue*
papango said @ 6:37am GMT on 10th Mar
As well you might. As a former cop yourself you know that investigators have to look at every angle, they can't rule out anything at this stage and it would be more suspicious if they were to come out and say they had completely ruled terrorism out.

And they have the matter of the stolen passports. Which I honestly don't find that surprising. Knowing the number of people who show up in New Zealand on false or stolen passports from China, a country which checks passports quite rigorously at the border, I'd be surprised if any flights from countries which are a bit more porous managed to get off the ground without at least one stolen passport on board. My suspicion is that this will uncover criminal activity and some assurances from Malaysia that they will be more vigilant in future (they won't, they don't have the resources).

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