Malaysia Airlines plane vanishes over Vietnam

Captain Hagan is a voice of sanity in all this.

There's another news conference due in an hour or so, but nothing concrete has happened overnight.

The ambassadors of the various nations it may have flown over are being contacted; as most of these have -stan at the end, that may, or may not, be an indication of the way things are going.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/03/15/malaysia-air-flight-370-could-passengers-have-survived-777-ascent-to-45000-feet/

Also sensible and factual.

http://news.sky.com/story/1226767/missing-plane-more-countries-join-search

The number of countries involved in the hunt for the Malaysia Airlines plane has increased from 14 to 25, officials have said.

The search area has been significantly expanded and the focus has changed from mainly "shallow seas" to "large tracks of land crossing 11 nations" as well as deep and remote oceans.

Investigators are looking at two flight corridors to the west of Malaysia.

One is a northern route stretching from northern Thailand to Kazakhstan and the other is a southern zone from Indonesia towards the southern Indian Ocean.

Both corridors are being treated with equal importance, say officials.

The jet disappeared more than a week ago after leaving Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.

Authorities say they are investigating ground staff as well as passengers and crew.

And they added the two pilots at the helm of flight MH370 did not ask to fly together.

More follows...

So, the -stans are now in the frame. Also, it seems the area in which it's now known the plane could be represents 10% of the surface of Planet Earth.

Oh God.

The missing Malaysia Airlines plane could have been on the ground when it sent satellite signals, officials have admitted.

The last 'ping' was picked up by a satellite nearly seven hours after the flight dropped off civilian air traffic control screens.

http://news.sky.com/story/1226767/missing-plane-may-have-sent-pings-on-ground

I don't think for one minute that we're being told the whole story.

It seems a bit drastic just to get one man out of jail.

IMO, that's a red herring, Sabot. I gather the guy's been in and out of jail, it's a long-running saga, and nothing worth hijacking a plane for. And then not telling anyone....

Now, it would not surprise me at all if the plane has been sitting in a hangar in a -Stan for the last week, which may be good. Never mind being humanitarian, the passengers would be valuable?

But what is the point to this if no one knows who did it? And feeding all of those passenger and crew for over a week would not be that easy.

Nothing hard about feeding 200 people if they haven't a clue where they are, just that they're in a hanger somewhere with guys with guns. They'll eat gruel and do as they're told.

I don't think this is terrorist, if it is anything other than an accident, it's criminal, not political. IMO.

There's enough emergency food onboard the plane to last a week apparently.

I wonder how soon they knew about this?

Lily, I just pray it hasn't crash landed somewhere, and survivors are waiting for help. There actually isn't anything resembling a good scenario in this.

No there isn't, Bonny. The passengers must be overwhelmed with worry assuming they are still alive.

They seem to me to be more interested in the plane.

True, Sabot, as that is the priority.

Malaysia authorities believes that the plane was hijacked.

Let's hope it landed safely, Pedro, and at some point, the passengers will be rescued if so.

yes bb1, I agree with you.

Bits and pieces of the blame game here....

08.30 It is not just China who is critical of Malaysia's investigation. The New York Times has compiled a summary of what it calls the "series of errors" made by Malaysia, which it says has complicated the task of finding MH370.

Most troubling, it says, is the fact that the plane flew over Malaysia itself without the country's military noticing it on military radar or taking steps to identify it.

"The fact that it flew straight over Malaysia, without the Malaysian military identifying it, is just plain weird — not just weird, but also very damning and tragic,” David Learmount, the operations and safety editor for Flightglobal, a news and data service for the aviation sector, told the newspaper.

The article notes that Malaysia has a control room and American-made F-18s and F-5 fighters on standby for emergenies exactly like this, but did nothing about the unauthorised flight.

08.23 China has ramped up its criticism of Malaysia's handling of the missing plane investigation today, saying it "squandered" precious time and resources by releasing dramatic information on the plane's fate a full week after it vanished.

Prime Minister Najib Razak's revelation yesterday that Malaysia Airlines flight 370 was deliberately diverted and flew for several hours after leaving its intended flight path has prompted questions over how long Malaysian authorities had been privy to the new data, and whether they had missed an opportunity to intercept the diverted plane.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency has run a scathing editorial:

It is undeniable that the disclosure of such vital information is painfully belated...

And due to the absence - or at least lack - of timely authoritative information, massive efforts have been squandered, and numerous rumours have been spawned

Two-thirds of the passengers on board the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing were Chinese.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10700892/Malaysia-Airlines-MH370-plane-crash-live.html

Link to the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/world/asia/series-of-errors-by-malaysia-mounts-complicating-the-task-of-finding-flight-370.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1

My friends, this was taken from Sky News:

http://news.sky.com/story/1226767/missing-plane-may-have-sent-signals-on-ground

Missing plane throws spotlight on passport theft

http://www.mail.com/int/news/world/2716272-missing-plane-throws-spotlight-passport-theft.html#.1272-stage-mostviewed1-1

What did they expect anyone to do? Shoot it down?

Definitely not, Sabot, but they would know where it is now.

Well, possibly, as Malaysia has their very own version of the World Trade Centre....

Even supposing there had been some kind of new, unthought-of accident onboard, the Air Force could at least have got close enough to see if, for instance, the pilots were moving or unconscious?

I would not like to be in the shoes of whoever was sleeping at those radar screens when it went over.

Okay, if the plane was heading for the Petronis Towers that might do it.   It could have been observed as Bonny said if it were flying on but the end result would be that it would be in a known location for when it landed?

Anything is possible at this point? What do we really know?