re: Official Thread: Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

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Let's talk about shooting down planes in a post 9/11 world.

Let say that a 777 leaves Atlanta headed for Denver. At some point the plane turns off it's locators, loses communiction, climbs to 45,000 feet, and turns 90 degrees heading directly for Chicago. Does this plane get shot down? How long would that take?

So lets look at MH370. Were there any targets that would need to be protected in the mainland of Thailand along the plane's new course? Then past that point, which countries could have seen this unidentified plane on their radar and taken action?

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I saw this earlier and wanted to respond then lost it in the mix earlier.


Let say that a 777 leaves Atlanta headed for Denver. At some point the plane turns off it's locators, loses communiction, climbs to 45,000 feet, and turns 90 degrees heading directly for Chicago. Does this plane get shot down? How long would that take?


Not at first. Plane is flying, blind no with no transponder, military will be ordered to intercept. SAM will not shoot. (Only DC is reported to have permanent SAM sites, but who knows? They put them in NOLA for the 2002 Super Bowl)

Fighters will intercept and and interrogate the "hostile"

They will make visual contact with the pilots.

During 9/11 it's reported that the planes chasing flight 93 had no weapons and were not yet in range.

So I would suspect more planes are kept in the ready and armed.

Generally with a civilian target there would be shots across the front of the plane. Then if no response, then they may shoot it down.

But I think there would be a process.

In your example you use ATL to DEN, let's say the hijackers took control, yet kept everything as normal. (ATC doesn't dound sound scans on pilots, they just want an answer)


So let's act out the hypothetical.

Plane departs at 0900UTC.
Plane hijacked 20 minutes into flight, over Tennessee. Hijacker pilot has the plane.

ten minutes later Memphis center contacts them

" Tiger Droppings Air 777 this is Memphis center, handing you over to Kansas City on 132.135"

" -- Memphis Center this is Tiger Droppings Air 777 copy that 135 have a good day"

Hijacker dials in new frequency.

"Kansas City center this is Tiger Droppings Air 777 en route to Delta Echo November"

"Tiger Dropings Air 777 this is Kansas Center, please squawk 3458 and keep your current flightplan"

"Kansas Center, Tiger Droppings Air 3458 Roger WILCO"

Terrorist changes transponder to 3458.

To all on the ground there is nothing to worry about.

But as soon as the plane gets due north of St. Louis, it shuts off it's transponder.

"Tiger Droppings Air 777 this is Kansas City, we don't see you on our scope, please verify 3458 and respond"

...
...
...
...

"Kansas , TDA777 we have a transponder issue, we are working on it now"

At this point Kansas Center is concerned but not yet worried.

With Transponder off, TDA777 take a hard right northeast to Chicago.

"TDA777, Kansas Center have you changed course?"

"TDA777, Kansas please respond.

Minutes pass, no response.

"TDA777 respond, what are your intentions, do you need to declare an emergency"

"SWA737 can you make contact with TDA777 in your area, you should have him on your box"

"Kansas Center SWA737 no response from TDA flight, have visual, heading towards Oscar Romeo Delta"

"Chicago Center we have a bird with no comms and no transponder heading your way. No contact for ten minutes, approaching your airspace at 520 knots, heading 030"

"Kansas this is Chicago we have him on Primary, entering our space in a few minutes."

ATC looks at airports in the area including Preoria and Springfield which are both Class Charlie (like Baton Rouge) with no deviation to land at either, plane is no considered a threat and the air force is notified.

"Air Force Command this is Chicago center. TigerDroppings Air 777 is heading due 030 at cruising speed, heading to Oscar Romeo Delta, original flight plan was to Delta Echo November. Possible Rouge Jet"

At this point the Air Force is alerted.

The call will go out to scramble planes.

The closest AFB with a ready fighter wing could be Wright-Patterson in Ohio, as the only AFB in Illinois is Scott AFB which is a refueling and loadmaster plane base.
(while looking into this, no airbase in Illinois, nor the one in northen Indiana had fighters ready on the ground. This doesn't mean that they don't have fighters closer.)

Air Force calls Scott airbase which is less than 100 miles from planes current position.
If Scott has planes availible they can intercept at .98 Mach and have the Jet before it gets to Chicago.

Now this is one of the busiest ATC areas in the country.



Getting Jets into the area to shoot this one plane will be hard.

So if there is not fighters at an Illinois, Southern Wisconsin or North Indiana base it will be almost impossible to intercept before it gets into ORD airspace. At that point, unless Chicago called for Midway and O'Hare to divert all flights north and east away from the area to clear traffic for the fighters, it would be very risky to send fighters in there with missles.

So yes the plane can be shot down, but even more risky.... I think that the plane could make Chicago before interception if it flies a high loop above STL then cuts 030 then flies VFR into a target of choice. (Willis Tower?)


So lets look at MH370. Were there any targets that would need to be protected in the mainland of Thailand along the plane's new course? Then past that point, which countries could have seen this unidentified plane on their radar and taken action?


Downtown Bangkok is full of people and a plane crashing into that area would cause a lot of deaths, but there is no symbol of prosperity that really sticks out.



India. Thailand. Pakistan.
Australia. USA. Other than those, I don't think the other nations it could reach among the arcs it is believed to have flown could do much.

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I am almost leaning more towards mechanical failure.

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Any sort of mechanical failure would have been sent automatically as data to Boeing, much like Air France 447. No such data was received.

Not only that, but the pilots would have declared an emergency to ATC.

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Not only that, but the pilots would have declared an emergency to ATC.

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which is why I think that it was all intentional.

No calls where made. Radio contact is high on the emergency checklist. Losing a transponder happens, losing a radio happens. Lose either and there is a system to help you with each, you can squawk 7600 and ATC knows you don't have a radio. You can tell them transponder is out. But for both and their backups to fail (each has a back up) is just fishy.

There are plenty of reasons to dispute all 3 major theories.


Suicide- why fly for so long
Hijacked- avoiding radar & no distress signal
Mechanical- experts say virtually impossible

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Mechanical- experts say virtually impossible

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I don't see how they could claim this shite, I have seen some weird arse failure modes in my short career. I am never willing to say anything is virtually impossible when it comes to man made systems.

Mechanical failure is indeed VERY possible but extremely unlikely in this scenario.

1) As the plane's systems would begin to fail, the plane would begin to send data into Boeing, explaining what was happening to the aircraft. Air France 477 had page upon page of data it sent out as the plane began to degrade in mid-air. Malaysia Flight 370 sent out no such data.

2) Had there been a mechanical failure, there were numerous ways the pilots could have sent out distress signals. Whether that be voice communication, squawk code, or text, they had the means to tell the ground they were having serious problems. No such communications were ever received.

12 minutes before the pilot said "good night" (whatever) we now know part of the communication was shutdown.

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12 minutes before the pilot said "good night" (whatever) we now know part of the communication was shutdown.

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Malaysia should have caught on as soon as the transponder was down.

Go to the airport and take an explorer flight in a Cessna, when the trainer isn't looking turn off the "thing that says 1200" and wait to see how long it takes for someone to contact you on the radio.

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Bc the 777 has the best track record of any commercial airliner in history

If I recall, there have only been 2 deaths in its 20yr history and those were the SF crash that was pilot error. 1 of which actually died while on the ground.

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That just means it's highly unlikely, it doesn't mean it's virtually impossible. No ship is unsinkable.

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That just means it's highly unlikely, it doesn't mean it's virtually impossible. No ship is unsinkable.

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No, it means that the thing that all of the analysts have been screaming about redundancy is true.

There are systems that look after systems that look after systems. Sure, could an accident happen, no doubt, but there is NO WAY that there wouldn't be hard data or info stating what took place