Good Night. Malaysian Three-Seven-Zero

[PleaseBlitz]

Fair warning:  the below-linked article is practically book-length.  It is also one of the most interesting and well-written things I've read in a long time.  You may recall that, in March 2014, a Malaysian Airlines flight just up and disappeared, and was never found.  Years later, pieces of it washed up ashore in Madagacar, thousands of miles away from where the flight began or was supposed to end.  Conspiracy theories abounded because the internet is dark and full of terrors.  This article attempts to explain what probably happened, which will make you think twice about ever flying again.  If you decide to invest an hour or more of your time to read this thing, here is a sampling of what you will get:

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/

 

Quote

By the time the airplane dropped from the view of secondary—transponder-enhanced—radar, it is likely, given the implausibility of two pilots acting in concert, that one of them was incapacitated or dead, or had been locked out of the ****pit. Primary-radar records—both military and civilian—later indicated that whoever was flying MH370 must have switched off the autopilot, because the turn the airplane then made to the southwest was so tight that it had to have been flown by hand. Circumstances suggest that whoever was at the controls deliberately depressurized the airplane. At about the same time, much if not all of the electrical system was deliberately shut down. The reasons for that shutdown are not known. But one of its effects was to temporarily sever the satellite link.

 

An electrical engineer in Boulder, Colorado, named Mike Exner, who is a prominent member of the Independent Group, has studied the radar data extensively. He believes that during the turn, the airplane climbed up to 40,000 feet, which was close to its limit. During the maneuver the passengers would have experienced some g‑forces—that feeling of being suddenly pressed back into the seat. Exner believes the reason for the climb was to accelerate the effects of depressurizing the airplane, causing the rapid incapacitation and death of everyone in the cabin.

 

An intentional depressurization would have been an obvious way—and probably the only way—to subdue a potentially unruly cabin in an airplane that was going to remain in flight for hours to come. In the cabin, the effect would have gone unnoticed but for the sudden appearance of the drop-down oxygen masks and perhaps the cabin crew’s use of the few portable units of similar design. None of those cabin masks was intended for more than about 15 minutes of use during emergency descents to altitudes below 13,000 feet; they would have been of no value at all cruising at 40,000 feet. The cabin occupants would have become incapacitated within a couple of minutes, lost consciousness, and gently died without any choking or gasping for air. The scene would have been dimly lit by the emergency lights, with the dead belted into their seats, their faces nestled in the worthless oxygen masks dangling on tubes from the ceiling.

 

[dfitzo53]

Wow. 

[Springfield]

I don’t have an hour to waste and the passage that you selected thoroughly frightened me, so thanks.

[Renegade7]

Goddamn.

[Chew]

Holy ****, quite the read.

 

Spoiler

So if the pilot was depressed and wanted to kill himself..why take so long to finish it? The abrupt turn south ans fuel exhaustion took hours.

 

Assuming his intent was to kill all the passengers "humanely" by depressurizing the cabin so everyone drifted off peacefully and didnt have to sit through a plane crash, why not put that **** into the ground as soon as the crew and passengers were dead?  Because this cornball wanted to see one more sunrise? 

 

And what happened to the young copilot?  I doubt he'd be cool with what the senior pilot did

 

[Destino]

It reads like mystery fiction.  A beach combing goofball living off his inheritance, and certain he’s being watched.  An assassination.  Military officials asleep at the wheel (or radar screens).  Corrupt investigators hiding a unknown something.  Twists and turns, like having the world search the wrong dang ocean.  It even has a young accomplished female protagonist seeking to hold the government accountable, all because she loved her mother.  

 

It fun to think about in that way.  As a murder mystery.  It’s less fun to dwell on the very real people that died or that their loved ones left grasping at implausible theories because the alternative was despair.  That’s a hell of a thing to have waiting to ambush you in your quiet moments.  

 

There’s no information that can make sense of mass murder, but even so a corrupt government dragging it out like this to save face seems especially cruel.  

 

It was a good read, thanks for posting it.

 

[PCS]

[No Excuses]

CNN damn near lost its mind over this story.

 

 

It is hard to fathom a suicidal pilot flying a plane full of dead people for 6 hours. 

[purbeast]

I don't have time to read this, but the comment about making you think twice about ever flying again is just silly, and based on your paragraph, I don't see why it would make one think twice about ever flying again.

 

Too many people already live their lives fearmongering for illogical reasons.  This sounds like another one of those.

[TheGoodBits]

37 minutes ago, purbeast said:

I don't have time to read this, but the comment about making you think twice about ever flying again is just silly, and based on your paragraph, I don't see why it would make one think twice about ever flying again.

 

Too many people already live their lives fearmongering for illogical reasons.  This sounds like another one of those.

 

In the article they give about 4 recent examples of pilots committing suicide by bringing down a plane full of people. I wouldn’t refuse to fly because of it, but it’s not like this was an isolated freak occurrence. At the very least it would make me slightly uncomfortable... but then again flying in planes usually does. It’s the complete lack of control, entrusting your life completely to your pilots, that bothers me. Adding in the slight perceived risk of having a pilot with mental health issues doesn’t help. 

Edited June 19, 2019 by skinsfan_1215

[PleaseBlitz]

1 hour ago, No Excuses said:

 

It is hard to fathom a suicidal pilot flying a plane full of dead people for 6 hours. 

 

Unfortunately, it’s not. We have people walking into schools and places of worship with assault rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammo on a weekly basis, savoring the damage they can do on their way out. This is the same thing but for people with particular training. 

45 minutes ago, purbeast said:

I don't have time to read this, but the comment about making you think twice about ever flying again is just silly, and based on your paragraph, I don't see why it would make one think twice about ever flying again.

 

Too many people already live their lives fearmongering for illogical reasons.  This sounds like another one of those.

 

Maybe reads things before you comment on them. 

 

Quote

This leaves us with a different sort of event, a hijacking from within where no forced entry is required—by a pilot who runs amok. Reasonable people may resist the idea that a pilot would murder hundreds of innocent passengers as the collateral price of killing himself. The definitive response is that this has happened before. In 1997, a captain working for a Singaporean airline called SilkAir is believed to have disabled the black boxes of a Boeing 737 and to have plunged the airplane at supersonic speeds into a river.* In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990 was deliberately crashed into the sea by its co-pilot off the coast of Long Island, resulting in the loss of everyone on board. In 2013, just months before MH370 disappeared, the captain of LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 flew his Embraer E190 twin jet from cruising altitude into the ground, killing all 27 passengers and all six crew members. The most recent case is the Germanwings Airbus that was deliberately crashed into the French Alps on March 24, 2015, also causing the loss of everyone on board. Its co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, had waited for the pilot to use the bathroom and then locked him out. Lubitz had a record of depression and—as investigations later discovered—had made a study of MH370’s disappearance, one year earlier.

 

Edited June 19, 2019 by PleaseBlitz

[bearrock]

At what point do we examine overriding  pilot's options at control?  When would a pilot need to nosedive into the ocean for legitimate reasons?  

 

Even 9-11, would an option for remote override have prevented the crashes?

[Hersh]

18 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Unfortunately, it’s not. We have people walking into schools and places of worship with assault rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammo on a weekly basis, savoring the damage they can do on their way out. This is the same thing but for people with particular training 

 

 

 

I get where @No Excuses is coming from. You don’t have to agree but it has a different feel than the other incidents of pilot suicide.

 

i haven’t finished the read yet. Do they speculate if the pilot stayed alive to the end or at some point ended his life while the plane was on autopilot?

[PleaseBlitz]

Just now, Hersh said:

 

I get where @No Excuses is coming from. You don’t have to agree but it has a different feel than the other incidents of pilot suicide.

 

i haven’t finished the read yet. Do they speculate if the pilot stayed alive to the end or at some point ended his life while the plane was on autopilot?

 

They don’t speculate on that detail. 

[purbeast]

1 hour ago, PleaseBlitz said:

Maybe reads things before you comment on them. 

I'm still not seeing how this current event would change anyone's mind.  

 

From your quote, it has happened a few times before (without proof for some of them) and now happened 1 more time (again, without any proof, it's all just hypothetical).  I doubt this one more time is going to change people's mind.

 

In the grand scheme of things with how many commercial flights there are and people traveling, the odds are microscopic that something like this will happen to you.  It's basically irrational to have a fear of flying due to a hijacking from people on the inside.

 

These are the numbers from 2017, and this is US only.

 

Quote

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) reported today that U.S. airlines carried an all-time high number of passengers during 2017 – 849.3 million systemwide, 741.6 million domestic and 107.7 million international – surpassing the previous high reached in 2016 (Tables A, B, C).

 

https://www.bts.dot.gov/newsroom/2017-annual-and-december-us-airline-traffic-data

 

I'll continue to "take my chance" with flying without fear of this happening.

Edited June 19, 2019 by purbeast

[PleaseBlitz]

18 minutes ago, purbeast said:

I'll continue to "take my chance" with flying without fear of this happening.

 

Oh yes me too.  But the next time you strap in, you  are going to think about this article (that you didn't read) and your nuts are going to tingle just a little bit.

[Dan T.]

2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

 

 

Maybe reads things before you comment on them. 

 

 In 1997, a captain working for a Singaporean airline called SilkAir is believed to have disabled the black boxes of a Boeing 737 and to have plunged the airplane at supersonic speeds into a river.* In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990 was deliberately crashed into the sea by its co-pilot off the coast of Long Island, resulting in the loss of everyone on board. In 2013, just months before MH370 disappeared, the captain of LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 flew his Embraer E190 twin jet from cruising altitude into the ground, killing all 27 passengers and all six crew members. The most recent case is the Germanwings Airbus that was deliberately crashed into the French Alps on March 24, 2015, also causing the loss of everyone on board. Its co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, had waited for the pilot to use the bathroom and then locked him out. Lubitz had a record of depression and—as investigations later discovered—had made a study of MH370’s disappearance, one year earlier.

 

Good read.

 

However, for those whose fear of flying might be stoked, here are some numbers for you.  The International Air Transport Association estimates that there were 36,800,000 commercial flights worldwide in 2017.  Another site lists the number of flights by year since 2004 through a 2019 estimate:

2004 = 23,800,000

2019 (est) = 39,400,000

 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/564769/airline-industry-number-of-flights/

 

The total number of commercial flights between 2004 and 2019, listed on the table in that link is 490,500,000. 

 

Between 2004 and present, according to the excerpt in PleaseBlitz's post, there have been three deliberate pilot crashes.  So your chances of being on a plane deliberately crashed by the pilot is 1 in 163,500,000.

 

But if you are still nervous about flying on a plane that the pilot might crash, I suggest you buy a Powerball ticket before boarding, because the chances of hitting the Powerball AND dying on the plane must be through the ROOF.

 

 

[tshile]

I haven’t finished reading. On section 6

 

i realize the 6 hour flight of dead people by a suicide pilot gets the attention. 

 

But honestly the incompetence of Malaysia is more concerning. I’m willing to bet that’s the norm not the exception once you get out of certain countries and into the rest of the world. 

1 hour ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Oh yes me too.  But the next time you strap in, you  are going to think about this article (that you didn't read) and your nuts are going to tingle just a little bit.

Yes and I hate you right now for that. I already have a fear of flying. I also can’t help but read things like this. 

 

So i wish you ill for a day or two. It won’t make up for what you’ve done to me but it makes me feel a bit better. 

[PleaseBlitz]

2 minutes ago, tshile said:

I haven’t finished reading. On section 6

 

i realize the 6 hour flight of dead people by a suicide pilot gets the attention. 

 

But honestly the incompetence of Malaysia is more concerning. I’m willing to bet that’s the norm not the exception once you get out of certain countries and into the rest of the world. 

 

It was not only incompetence, but also deliberate efforts to obstruct the investigation in order to "just move on" because it reflected poorly on the administration.  

[tshile]

3 hours ago, bearrock said:

At what point do we examine overriding  pilot's options at control?  When would a pilot need to nosedive into the ocean for legitimate reasons?  

 

Even 9-11, would an option for remote override have prevented the crashes?

 

All uplinks we’re dead. What data we have is from a few handshakes with satellite communications that did nothing but say “hey I see you” and using some math with values inherent in that communication technology they were able to plot probable courses. 

 

If you cant talk to the plane you can’t really take control. 

1 minute ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

It was not only incompetence, but also deliberate efforts to obstruct the investigation in order to "just move on" because it reflected poorly on the administration.  

Yeah I meant that to be included. But was distracted by my need to tell you how much I hate you right now.  Thank you for adding. 

[Chew]

::checks Amtrak prices::

[No Excuses]

14 minutes ago, Chew said:

::checks Amtrak prices::

 

We've had more Amtrak trains derailing than planes crashing in the US lately. 😶

[PleaseBlitz]

14 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

We've had more Amtrak trains derailing than planes crashing in the US lately. 😶

 

Were any of them intentional derailings because the conductor was depressed and wanted to commit mass murder?

[Mr. Sinister]

Yeah i was gonna say, good luck with that, bruh. I don't trust a single inch of track in this country

[bearrock]

1 hour ago, tshile said:

 

All uplinks we’re dead. What data we have is from a few handshakes with satellite communications that did nothing but say “hey I see you” and using some math with values inherent in that communication technology they were able to plot probable courses. 

 

The communications were severed intentionally right? (Or at least that's the suspicion).  I guess another question I have is that why or how is that even an option?

Edited June 19, 2019 by bearrock