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

[dowjr1]

Well we know the transponder was manually turned off and we know two sketch guys from Iran were on board with stolen passports. So could be something else or it could be if it quacks like a duck...

[Dara]

We know the radar monitoring stations lost the plane, we DO NOT know the transponders were turned off....could have been a malfunction.

Also, not all iranians are terrorists in the same way not all irish are alcoholics and not all australians are speedo wearing fosters drinking shrimp barbecuers. There is no proof that these guys were anything more than people trying to get to Europe from Iran via Malaysia & China!

Lets remember the Air France flight from Rio to Paris that crashed in the atlantic and it was 6 days before they discovered any wreckage.....it was a further few months before they found the main wreckage and black box on the sea bed.

If a plane breaks up above 30,000 feet then the parts you'll find will be small (due to being ripped part by speed and wind resistance as they descend) and spread over a relatively wide area, under 30,000 and you may get bigger pieces of fuselage confined to a narrower debris field.

The problem here seems to be the malaysian authorities, the military say they believe it turned back but hen have no transponder evidence to prove this.

The CIA have come out and said they've ruled out a mid air explosion as their spy satellites would pick up a heat signature like that which means the aircraft fell due to mechanical or human problems.

What really annoyed me was the lowlife who tried to sell the domain www.mh370.com on eBay for $5k saying that it would attract loads of visitors from families of casualties etc....talk about making a buck on peoples misery!

Flying is still a very safe form of transport....just look at Nino who must have spent tens of thousand of hours in the air flying all over and he's still here to tell many interesting tales!

[Nino]

Dara,

your post is among the most rational so far in this tragic puzzle.

Most dangerous part of flying still is the car ride to and from the airport.

Let's wait for serious and credible reports from authoritative sources before driving into false theories.

[Duxnutz]

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.

30 days is the correct answer. While they found wreckage in the first week after the Air France accident it took nearly 2 yrs to liberate the black boxes from the ocean. I'm confident this mystery will be solved eventually.

Remember at any one time there's hundreds of airliners airborne (and probably a 100 B777s) so air travel is an incredibly safe thing, regardless of what CNN tells you!

[Optic101]

News from today.

[PaulP]

At one briefing, according to this person, officials were told investigators are actively pursuing the notion that the plane was diverted "with the intention of using it later for another purpose."

Wsj

[CaptainQuintero]

Was talking to some friends about this and one mentioned swissair flight 111, we looked blank at him and he went onto explain something similar happenning to a plane that was stuffed with jewels and bullion etc. He then mentioned that the Ukrainian gvrnment had just agreed to store their god reserves in China to back up a massive loan:

Timing:

Feb 28th 2014

Chinese Ambassador Zhang Xiyun and Ukrainian foreign minister Victor Mayko meet in Kiev to discuss China's $ 3 billion loan given to Ukraine in 2012. That loan is secured by ukrainian gold reserves.

Due to the ukrainian turmoil, china stresses the situation by telling that they request that loan to be repaid as the ukrainian side did - so far - only deliver grain to china worth 150 million instead of the negotiated amount of grain worth $ 3 billion per year.

Due to the turmoil and unsteady situation, they negotiate that the loan doesnt have to be repaid right now if ukraine agrees to store their gold reserves in china. The agreement had been signed on March 1st 2014.

Night March 6th/7th Kiev time:

Witnesses at Borispol airport in Kiev see the gold being packed into boxes by masked men in black military uniforms and put into an unidentified transport plane scheduled for Kuala Lumpur.

March 7th 8pm Malaysian time:

The transport plane arrives in Kuala Lumpur and the gold boxes are received and checked by representatives of Asia-Pacific and ANZ bank at the airport.

March 7th 11 pm

The gold is (at least it should have been there) loaded into MH370 scheduled for Peking.

Shortly after midnight MH370 takes off for the Peking flight.

http://newswire-24.com/2014/03/07/4827/

http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/china...e-in-jeopardy/

No idea if its credible or not but the news here is doing their usual poor job of reporting anything so people are having to dig around themselves

It's worthwhile to mention too that a taxi driver in Karachi doesn't get a customer, nor a ham radio in Gibraltar make a transmission, without the Israeli listening post on Mt Meron and the British on Mt Troodos in Cyprus knowing about it, both with total coverage on all bands up to 2000 miles in all directions. Let alone the other monitoring statement from all nations. The new breaking stories about the plane flying from waypoint to waypoint steadily are being released by military channels.

Someone somewhere knows exactly where the plane is. I just hope the people are ok.

[Nino]

Was talking to some friends about this and one mentioned swissair flight 111, we looked blank at him and he went onto explain something similar happenning to a plane that was stuffed with jewels and bullion etc. He then mentioned that the Ukrainian gvrnment had just agreed to store their god reserves in China to back up a massive loan:

Swissair 111 was a tragic accident over St John's Canada due to electric fire behind the cockpit area that drastically changed procedures for on-board fire handling - immediate landing and no fuel dumping even if overweight.

I stopped reading further as it has as much to do with MH 370 as yesterday's weather report ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swissair_Flight_111

[Dara]

Surely if the Chinese were going to take Gold they'd want to carry it on their own cargo plane along with the appropriate security, not on a Malaysian flight that was code sharing with China Southern. Also, wouldn't there be officials from Chinese banks such as BOC/CDB at KL airport rather than Australian bank officials?

Speaking as someone who has seen insurance documents for civilian airlines as part of my work, the airline would not be insured to carry such a large amount of valuable cargo on a normal scheduled flight. Even a cargo operator would have to take out additional insurance to cover a shipment of gold bullion and the insurers would want a representative on the flight along with a minimum number of security personnel, list of precautions taken, etc.

Unfortunately, the media is coming out with quotes from "someone connected to blah blah blah who does wish to be named" to try and add credence to every story and these stories are selling papers, getting hits to their websites etc.

[Duxnutz]

Hope they find the damn airplane soon. Im sick of coming home and my Mrs being disappointed I didn't disappear.

[CaptainQuintero]

Surely if the Chinese were going to take Gold they'd want to carry it on their own cargo plane along with the appropriate security, not on a Malaysian flight that was code sharing with China Southern. Also, wouldn't there be officials from Chinese banks such as BOC/CDB at KL airport rather than Australian bank officials?

Speaking as someone who has seen insurance documents for civilian airlines as part of my work, the airline would not be insured to carry such a large amount of valuable cargo on a normal scheduled flight. Even a cargo operator would have to take out additional insurance to cover a shipment of gold bullion and the insurers would want a representative on the flight along with a minimum number of security personnel, list of precautions taken, etc.

That was my response too. Apparently (I don't see how this would be true personally) Chinese military planes wouldn't be allowed to stock up the cargo due to sovereign issues at military/sovereign bases at the time but would instead provide escort when entering Chinese airspace or leaving Ukraine airspace.

Big value cargo such as with swissair 111 use civilian transport and like you said independent insurers like Lloyd of L. Apparently as the cargo in question would already an insurance on the nations debt to start with so the civilian insurance would be needed.

Lloyd paid out £300m over swissair, 98% of the plane was recovered but none of the gold or diamonds were.

Most of the chinese gold imports are delivered to hong kong's asia pacific company and then they further deliver to peking and shanghai. ANZ bank received a gold import licence by the chinese government early this year.

If the guy was right, there should be approx 33 ton of gold on the plane, wherever it is. About 2 billion dollars on current prices?

Again just what was discussed with someone who is in the circle.

Agree with the failure of the media on this one, it makes it a big talking point. It seems only a fool would blindly follow what is being belched out by CNN/BBC etc and disregard information from those who have more experience and knowledge on matters involved.

[Fosgate]

Not to hijack the thread. That just wasn't my summer. I was going home on leave due to an injury I sustained in Hohehnfels GE training area. The idiot I was driving for on a night drive under blackout kept pushing me to go faster down the tank trails. Night vision was not what it is today and hit a tank ditch at 45-50mpg. Helmet saved me from getting my head crushed between the collapsing upper beams (yeah that's blood). Couldn't work with a head injury and had leave saved up so my Cpt signed off on paperwork to let me go home and recover under supervision of my family. I was half expecting the house to catch fire or some other calamity to ensue.

[Nino]

From an aviation forum I follow :

If you have the resources to steal an aircraft full of gold/diamonds/Justin Bieber CDs, fly it anonymously to a secure landing site and off-load the booty, then you may as well just hijack the truck on its way to or from the airport!

Much cheaper, less risky and involves a hell of a lot less people.

[Skyfall]

From an aviation forum I follow :

Exactly Nino!

No matter what, China nor the Ukraine would ever transport that much gold via civilian or commercial transport. That idea would not even be on the table for discussion. Military and/or private services would be used , and there would be an elaborate security detail including high level tracking and decoys. That amount of Gold is more likely to be shipped by a sea vessel escorted from both air and sea.

[CaptainQuintero]

Not to hijack the thread. That just wasn't my summer. I was going home on leave due to an injury I sustained in Hohehnfels GE training area. The idiot I was driving for on a night drive under blackout kept pushing me to go faster down the tank trails. Night vision was not what it is today and hit a tank ditch at 45-50mpg. Helmet saved me from getting my head crushed between the collapsing upper beams (yeah that's blood). Couldn't work with a head injury and had leave saved up so my Cpt signed off on paperwork to let me go home and recover under supervision of my family. I was half expecting the house to catch fire or some other calamity to ensue.

eep, you were lucky my friend! How long were you signed off for?

[Fosgate]

Went home for 30 days. Did my four years. Saw most of Europe, South Africa and Honduras. Still have yet to check out the orient and Australia. But hope to yet someday.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Nino]

Exactly Nino!

No matter what, China nor the Ukraine would ever transport that much gold via civilian or commercial transport. That idea would not even be on the table for discussion. Military and/or private services would be used , and there would be an elaborate security detail including high level tracking and decoys. That amount of Gold is more likely to be shipped by a sea vessel escorted from both air and sea.

Not sure Sky,

we are not part of the illuminati circle so we might only have knowledge and common sense to work with ...

[Philski]

He then mentioned that the Ukrainian gvrnment had just agreed to store their god reserves in China to back up a massive loan:

Fishier and fishier. I'm one of the last people to jump on conspiracy theories, but a handful of the experts here were saying a few days ago that we definitely weren't being told the whole story. A nation's gold reserves being nicked might just explain the suppression of information from the very top levels.

[CaptainQuintero]

we are not part of the illuminati circle

Not a circle for sure, definitely a ring though.

Fishier and fishier. I'm one of the last people to jump on conspiracy theories, but a handful of the experts here were saying a few days ago that we definitely weren't being told the whole story. A nation's gold reserves being nicked might just explain the suppression of information from the very top levels.

Yep, it was just a chat I was having with some friends. If the media/reporters could do a half decent job nowadays then there would be no need for individuals or groups to do their job for them! The media has changed its story nearly every day so far, something funky has gone on whether malicious or not. I just hope that no one is hurt and the families are getting more information than we are.

[Nino]

Theories like these are what happens when the human mind is left without facts - it creates them.

That's normal, and there's nothing wrong with that.

The danger comes when those imagined scenarios become believed.

[CaptainQuintero]

I agree with you there facts are just what is needed here. It is disturbing that nothing solid has been released yet to the average reader. I can't think how horrible it must be for those who are friends and family of those missing

[Skyfall]

Not a circle for sure, definitely a ring though.

It's more of a 4 sided Triangle actually...

[Philski]

Theories like these are what happens when the human mind is left without facts - it creates them.

I couldn't agree with you more. That might be the exact phrase I have used several times before.

Purely out of interest, Nino, as more of an 'insider' than me, do you have any opinions? The aviation world seems as baffled as the rest of us.

[Skyfall]

Also, not all iranians are terrorists in the same way not all irish are alcoholics

You are right, but when you are dealing with stolen passports and abnormal traveling details, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well...

And it appears that the news tonight is that the flight is being officially confirmed that it was in fact hijacked and believed to have been diverted and relocated to an unknown location. (something everyone knew from the get go)

People with no malicious intentions, don't steal passports.

[El Presidente]

You are right, but when you are dealing with stolen passports and abnormal traveling details, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well...

And it appears that the news tonight is that the flight is being officially confirmed that it was in fact hijacked. People with no malicious intentions, don't steal passports.

Mate in this part of the world (South East Asia) stolen passports are passe. We have such a market for illegal immigration (not just into Oz) that it is an industry within itself.