Where Is the Mysterious Disappearance of Flight 370?
It has been a week since Flight 370, a Boeing 777, took off from KL in Malyasia on a routine flight to Beijing, China. Within the space of two hours after take off, it vanished with all 239 passengers of which 150 were Chinese. Two Iranian men had boarded using fake passports. The last contact with ground control was simply very normal, routine. Intelligence satellites using sophisticated equipment find nothing. Meanwhile, 10 countries, 56 ships, 30 aircraft, 10 helicopters, scour the surrounding oceans from the South China Sea to those around Malaysia.
The latest is that the aircraft flew erratically up to 45,000 ft., above its safe limits and then down to 23,000 ft. The flight path is now focused on the Indian Ocean and to suspected areas. The talk about a fire caused by lithium batteries is a possibility. Once the erratic altitudes were completed, the plan seemed to be controlled and flew level for several hours. It actually could have flown to the Arabian Sea. What this suggests is that either a hijacking was the cause or the pilots were struggling with the aircraft.
The mysterious vanishing of flight 370 is like a Hollywood script and thriller novel because nobody seems to know anything for certain. Experts are baffled. The Malaysian authorities still claim that it may have made U-turn and traveled back across Malaysia. However, all we know is that "an aircraft" of some sort did this from the last known spot of Flight 370. The Chinese released a satellite image claiming it could be remnants of the flight not that far off the planned flight path. Clearly, something seems to be there. But this image was taken on the day the aircraft took off. The image was days old when it was finally released. So, Vietnamese and other ships\aircraft race to the site and find nothing. Then, the Chinese retract stating the image was released by mistake. Huh? Saving face? If the image in this photo was the aircraft, the aircraft would have sunk to the bottom by the time search vessels had arrived days later.
Now, some are suspecting that the aircraft continued to fly for hours after contact was lost. This could put it anywhere making the search areas too vast to search. The Indian Navy is now searching the Indian Ocean. If anything catastrophic did occur, it would sudden. If it was an explosion, some debris would have been found by now, somewhere. The fact that nothing has been found leads one to suspect that maybe, just maybe, it was a silent hijacking. One that the aircraft's electronic transponders and other electronic detection or signal sending were shut down. Experts say a pilot or someone who has researched it, can easily flick a few switches to do this. When done, the aircraft could not be tracked. Some think that once it was turned off, the aircraft flew under radar surveillance, around 500 ft. above the deck. In this state, the large 777 can only be detected visually or by sound.
If this latest theory is plausible, you would think someone, somewhere, would have seen a huge airliner flying so low. Did it land somewhere remote, passengers became captives and the plane hid in a huge warehouse or under jungle canopy? Like I said, this mystery is real-life Twilight Zone or Fringe TV shows. Was the pilot and the Iranians on the same team and was this a drug smuggling scheme? Was the pilot cockpit compromised and taken over by hijackers? If the plane was hijacked and is now hidden, are there plans for terrorists to use it for some other nefarious attack?
Seriously,when the USN, with its high tech P-3C Orion maritime search aircraft, the USS Kidd and Pinckney come up with nothing over suspected search areas, military satellites find nothing, no debris is found, no bodies, and tracking is full of red herrings, your mind starts to consider many things. However, searching in such a vast ocean where currents constantly move whatever debris there is on the surface or at the bottom, it becomes much more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack. It becomes simply lucky. Being at the right spot at the right time.
If the plane made a semi-safe landing on the ocean, survivors would have had a few hours to escape before the aircraft would sink. Some debris would have been spotted somewhere. The Chinese defense satellite photo really seemed to have solved the mystery. It does look like a metal object and an aircraft. Days have past since that image was taken, if it was there, it should be easy to find with sonar even if it has drifted. Yet, the Chinese seem to suggest to disregard the photo as a mistake. What do they know that they are not telling? Surely, they would not have released it unless they they were positive about it, otherwise, it would be an embarrassment. Yet, this is what seems to have happened.
The mystery of Flight 370 is epic. What is worse, not knowing what has happened to it and its passengers or finding its tragic crash site? This is just bizarre.
