As a nervous flyer at the best of times.....

[El Presidente]

Heartfelt thoughts to the families involves in the missing Malaysian Airlines Aircraft.

Having flown around this region for 20 years, I can't come to grips with the fact that after 4 days it has not been found? The area within which it was lost is not exactly isolated. At the very least, townships, villages, fishing boats, container ships ....someone, anyone would have seen it come down or at at least a light in the sky?

One of the great mysteries is happening right now.

[PapaDisco]

With so many flights now, something this strange was eventually bound to happen. It is quite the mystery. Even a disintegrating aircraft leaves behind some very, very large chunks of metal (engines at the very least).

[Ken Gargett]

i keep thinking of 'lost'.

we've heard nothing re the black box? my understanding was that it was automatically set off with contact with water. and then transmitted for a month. so what is going on? did it malfunction?

if the plane was blown out of the sky, surely there would be debris on the water? floating crap from suitcases or clothes or????

if it went into water for any reason, if intact, water would still get in to the box

very strange.

[LordAnubis]

This is not the first plane to go missing without a trace, and im sure it won't be the last. Eventually it will be found, but finding out what happeend to it may not ever be solved.

At this stage im betting on CIA consipiracy to ultimately blame the russians and fool the western world into going to war with the russia, and hence starting world war 3. We all know how "They have WMDs" turned out, but we humans don't seem to learn from our mistakes.

[El Presidente]

This is not the first plane to go missing without a trace, and im sure it won't be the last. Eventually it will be found, but finding out what happeend to it may not ever be solved.

At this stage im betting on CIA consipiracy to ultimately blame the russians and fool the western world into going to war with the russia, and hence starting world war 3. We all know how "They have WMDs" turned out, but we humans don't seem to learn from our mistakes.

......and to think that you don't even drink

[westg]

Me to Ken .....Black box only works (receive a signal )if your within 2000 meters of it, you would think there would be traces of wreckage if it crashed into the ocean or jungle..Transponder was destroyed or turned off voluntarily ...to land a jet that size you need a suitable landing surface at least 2km long. would be vey strange not to detect an explosion from a plane that size that would destroy it completely especially in a densely populated and highly militarised part of the world .....very strange indeed , I do hope somehow somewhere those people are still alive .

[maxcjs0101]

More than 5 countries with over 20 ships are searching the vicinity but so far nothing has been found and conspiracies are growing like wild mushrooms.

[LordAnubis]

Ahahah Rob, i am muslim though, so there's that

[Ken Gargett]

Me to Ken .....Black box only works (receive a signal )if your within 2000 meters of it you would think there would be traces of wreckage if it crashed into the ocean or jungle..Transponder was destroyed or turned off voluntarily ...to land a jet that size you need a suitable landing surface at least 2km long. would be vey strange not to detect an explosion from a plane that size that would destroy it completely especially in a densely populated and highly militarised part of the world .....very strange indeed , I do hope somehow somewhere those people are still alive .

ta for that.

saw an american expert interviewed. he said the transponder would be the last thing turned off so he believes almost certainly human involvement.

and i saw some reports suggesting it went way across the other side of the peninsula. who knows if, if true. but that would mean, if it went down in the sea, it had a few days for everything to disperse and sink.

[ZinZan]

Every time I wanted to comment on this thread, I had to delete my comment. I just didn’t want to add unconstructive comments. I'm pissed there's nothing still, with the amount boats and countries helping us out still nothing.

[Fuzz]

Every time I wanted to comment on this thread, I had to delete my comment. I just didn’t want to add unconstructive comments. I'm pissed there's nothing still, with the amount boats and countries helping us out still nothing.

I have the same feeling. Wanting to comment, but just can't add more speculation into the mix.

[helix]

Possibility of having sunk intact will make it very difficult to find.

[Dozerhead]

I am still shocked that in this day and age of technology and sattelite survellience that there is still no trace of this aircraft. I can't even imagine what the families and loved ones of the passengers and crew are going through right now.

[Brickhouse]

An "expert" on CNN said the black box, which is actually orange, only puts out a signal for about 48hrs after crash. That ship has sailed.

[OkieJoe]

something will eventually wash up.... sad

[KoreanCowboy]

Not sure if true or not, but I read that the only other plane "crash" where a black box was not detected/recovered was the 9/11 planes that hit the World Trade Centers. And in some very educated (and not so educated) circles, that incident is thought to be a government conspiracy too. I think LordAnubis might be on to something here...

I just don't see how with all of our technology we can't find a single piece of this plane. There are satellites that can read a driver's license in someone's hand from outer space for crying out loud!

[Fosgate]

Flying never bothered me until I flew back to the states from Germany on board a C-5 Galaxy transport for a MAC flight. Paid $10 for my box lunch and boarded. Cargo bay was full of vehicles and pallets of cargo so we knew we were not sitting there as the loadmaster ushered us up to the cabin area behind the cockpit. There we could look out the window no problem and they should have blocked it out. I got a window seat and everything seemed fine until we hit Greenland where we hit some bad turbulence. We were getting rattled a bit as guys were taking turns peeping out the window watching the wing flex up until that point. (About 6ft up and down) When we hit the turbulence the wing flex looked really bad....like the wings might snap off to us grunts. Then one of the Air Force guys at the opposite side mutters "Uh OH!". The only thing you could hear were the engines and see what this guy seemed worried. The sergeant next looked at him and waited for a response and got none withing a 5 second window then said to the guy.

"What the **** do you mean UH OH!?".

"I think we lost an engine!" says the guy. "I saw a quick puff and the vapor trail seems to be disappearing."

Just then the load master runs past us to the front telling us we lost an engine and needs assistance to prepare to dump cargo.

Army captain with us piped up and yelled "You're not dumping my tanks!" and a quick argument ensues between he and the load master. Meanwhile me and the guy next to me are looking at each other with eyes as big as baseballs like it may be our last moments on earth and this captains worried about his M1 Abrams over all of us. Needless to say the load master had all the authority but luckily we didn't need to dump cargo. I think that captain was about to get mauled when we hit the ground for an emergency landing at Loring AFB in Maine. And lots of tension while we waited for repairs. Turns out the engine had caught fire and was shut down but that was my closest call in my years of flying. Flew many civilian flights since with no problems with the exception of the free groping that TSA performs on occasion.

[joeskow]

add these to the mix as well, seems the co-pilot was quite a character..

http://my.news.yahoo.com/b777-pilot-contacted-mh370-vanished-says-radio-interference-041445964.html

http://www.news.com.au/world/playboy-pilot-at-controls-of-mh370-had-a-track-record-of-inviting-pretty-passengers-into-his-cockpit-where-he-smoked-and-posed-for-snaps/story-fndir2ev-1226850952131

[ZAZ]

Fosgate -- wow that's a crazy story. I can't imagine being in that situation.

[maxcjs0101]

wow Fosgate, that was close.

[PaulP]

KoreanCowboy, on 12 Mar 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

Not sure if true or not, but I read that the only other plane "crash" where a black box was not detected/recovered was the 9/11 planes that hit the World Trade Centers.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, both black boxes from Flight 77 and both black boxes from Flight 93 were recovered. However, the CVR from Flight 77 was said to be too damaged to yield any data. On April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings. In April 2006, a transcript of the CVR was released as part of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.

wikipedia

[ZinZan]

The scariest experience for me was flying United Airlines flight Narita to Singapore. Even before the takeoff the plane was having issues, if I’m not mistaken it was a 747. Lights were going off even the air cond was not functioning at times. Regardless we did take off, throughout the flight we kept having the same problems with the lights and the air cond but it got serious when we were about to go to sleep then the plane started shaking and we could feel the engine was losing power intermittently. And at last the pilot decided to land in Manila, at first they said it was a minor electrical issue. From a couple of hour waiting in the plane then became 6 hours at the airport. Then at last they decided to give us rooms. We were stuck in Manila for 2 days.

[Cigar Surgeon]

This might make you feel better about flying:

[Ryan]

The wording of a news report on the radio here this morning was interesting.

"Searchers unsure which ocean missing plane might be in"

"Which ocean"?

Hardly inspires confidence that the search is narrowing.

[KoreanCowboy]

KoreanCowboy, on 12 Mar 2014 - 10:42 AM, said:

Not sure if true or not, but I read that the only other plane "crash" where a black box was not detected/recovered was the 9/11 planes that hit the World Trade Centers.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, both black boxes from Flight 77 and both black boxes from Flight 93 were recovered. However, the CVR from Flight 77 was said to be too damaged to yield any data. On April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings. In April 2006, a transcript of the CVR was released as part of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.

wikipedia

Thanks PaulP. I wondered how true that could be given that my crazy right winged friend told me about it. He's a devout follower of the Blaze and Alex Jones so sometimes his "theories" are a little far out. I'm not against the right or left so don't get me wrong here. I actually like both sides.