The Disappearance of Flight 370

by Frederick Hoehn, copyright 2014, all rights reserved.

Chapter 1

It is now ten days since the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 370.

Many people would like to know what happened to Flight 370, including Boeing, the manufacturer of the Boeing 777-200 wide body jumbo jet, Rolls Royce, that manufactures jet engines for Boeing, who apparently received ACARS data via satellite, as did Boeing, including the families of the missing passengers, including pretty much the world, who have been watching this major news story daily on TV, since the event happened.

I don’t claim to have a great deal of aviation expertise, but I have expertise in technology, and electrical systems, and in radio communications, being licensed by the Federal Communications Commission.

The authorities would like very much to find the “black boxes” (actually orange in color) which are the Flight Data Recorder, and the Cockpit Voice Recorder.  Their location was in the tail section of the aircraft.  Finding them should answer a lot of questions.

Someone on TV said, you find them with sonar.  That’s right, if they’re in the ocean, but if they’re on land, you don’t find them with sonar.  Sonar equipment is present on most U.S. Navy ships, and especially submarines.

One of the images on TV showed a map of Malaysia with a mark on the map of where contact was supposed to have been lost.  That mark was perhaps seven eighths the way from the Kuala Lumpur airport where flight 370 took off to the edge of Malaysia where Malaysia meets the ocean, along the scheduled flight path of Flight 370 to its scheduled destination in China.

The mark was still over land.  After searching in the oceans for all this time, perhaps it’s time to send some search parties to search the jungles of Malaysia under the flight path of Flight 370.  It’s been said that there’s a high canopy of foliage over the Malaysian jungles (that could be concealing a downed plane.)

But that mark on that map could be erroneous, and many of the reports in this unfolding story have been conflicting.

One of the reporters said that Flight 370 flew over “Pa Nang.”  I don’t know whether “Pa Nang” is in Malaysia or Viet Nam.

The Chinese released some satellite photos that were thought to possibly be wreckage of the aircraft on the water.  Later, this report was discounted.

It was also reported that Flight 370 took a sharp left turn and headed west at about the time that it was leaving the radar range of Malaysia, and at the time of the “hand-off” from Malaysian Air Traffic Control to Vietnamese Air Traffic control.

This was also the time that someone turned off the transponders, which provide the altitude of the aircraft, and they squawk a selected number, dialed into the transponder by the pilot, that represents Flight 370, and they’re part of the TCAS system, which is for automatic collision avoidance, in case the aircraft comes too close to another aircraft.  Of course, your TCAS system doesn’t work if the transponder has been switched off, as with Flight 370.

The transponder can also be set to squawk a code that means “We’re being hijacked.”  But that didn’t happen with Flight 370.

The ACARS system was also turned off, which is no easy task, which would entail dealing with two computer screens of data when turning it off.  Certain parameters on those screens would need to be changed.  The average man in the street would not have the necessary specialized knowledge.

At the time of the hand-off, a new radio frequency was given to the pilots to be used with Vietnamese Air Traffic Control.  Someone in the Flight 370 cockpit apparently responded, “All right, good night.”  But that response violates protocol in that the information given to the pilots should have been repeated back for verification.  Such as, “Acknowledge frequency 107 point 3.”

Some have suggested that the pilots may have already been under duress at that time.

The ACARS system automatically sends out data about the aircraft and its flight to Boeing and Rolls Royce.  ACARS is an acronym, Aircraft Communications Addressing & Reporting System.

Some of the early theories suggested some catastrophic event on the aircraft such as an explosion, or a fire, or an electrical malfunction, or mechanical malfunction.

But the electrical system had a back-up electrical system, and the back-up electrical system had a back-up system.  And the plane had batteries that would kick in in the event of other electrical power failure.

It is extremely unlikely that a fire would have disabled just the specific targets of the two transponders and the ACARS system.

Someone suggested that would be like accidentally “hot wiring” a car.  When cars are hot wired, it is not by accident.

It was said that lithium ion batteries were among the cargo on that flight.  They are said to be very deadly if they catch fire.  I understand lithium ion batteries are not allowed as cargo on American passenger flights.

There could have been other valuable cargo on Flight 370, cargo perhaps valuable enough to entice thieves to steal the plane for its cargo.  And possibly a bomb could have been placed with the cargo, or somewhere else on the plane.

Another theory suggested that someone very important or wealthy could have been aboard the plane as a passenger, who might have been wanted as a hostage or for some other purpose.

But if this was a robbery or a kidnapping, would someone really steal the plane for its cargo, and just toss the multi-million dollar plane?

Of course, a “hot” plane might not be so easy to dispose of on the black market.  But in the U.S., people steal cars and take them to a “chop shop,” where the cars are disassembled to harvest the parts, which are then sold.

Just the parts making up a Boeing 777 would probably be worth more than a million dollars, including engines, all the avionics, generators, wheels, hydraulics, electrical apparatus, etc.

A U.S. government official is reported to have said in the last day or so that the intelligence community is now focusing on the personnel in the cockpit.

But do we really know who was in the cockpit?  The pilot and co-pilot have been identified.  The pilot was a man in his fifties, and an aviation enthusiast who built his own flight simulator at his home.

It is not illegal to have your own flight simulator, and it could be used by a pilot to fine tune his skills as a pilot.

But someone has suggested that the simulator could also have been used to practice landing at a new airport that the pilot had not landed at before, or used for the purpose of practicing flying under the radar to avoid detection, or flying a route that would avoid detection of coastal radars as the aircraft approached land.

From the radar transmitter/receiver, the radio frequency energy follows a straight line in the direction and angle the antenna is pointed.

But the surface of the earth is curved.  So, if the plane is at a distance of perhaps thirty miles from the radar, by flying low enough, it could avoid radar detection, and detection could be avoided more easily at longer distances.

That pilot, in his fifties, quite recently was reported to be an avid supporter of a jailed Malaysian opposition leader, so that could be a factor in what happened with Flight 370.

The co-pilot was a younger man with significantly less experience than the pilot.  They say he was a good Muslim who attended Friday prayers.  But just that information alone suggests to me that he ought to be considered a suspect.

The two young men who perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombing were said to be good Muslim young men.  But then they became radicalized.

It seems to me that it’s not so difficult to radicalize a Muslim young man.

Perhaps all that is needed is for another Muslim to ask the question, “Don’t you want to do something for God?”

In John 16:2, Jesus said, “The time will come when he that kills you will think that he’s doing God a service.”  That time has arrived.  Many Muslims think that you and I ought to be dead if we are not Muslims.

So would converting to Islam be likely to help your longevity?  Maybe, but the downside is that you would go to hell for not having Jesus as Savior.

The Muslims say that Jesus was a good man and a prophet, but not the Son of God.  They’re mistaken.  Jesus is the Son of God.

On a bus, traveling between cities, a young Muslim urged me to read the Koran (or, Quran).  I answered, “We don’t have to eat garbage to know that it is garbage.”

It is interesting to note that in the religion of Islam, it seems to be the case that if the Muslim god wants someone dead, he needs a Muslim to go do the execution.

But if the Judeo-Christian God wants someone dead, He is well able to do the execution without the help of a man.  Thus, the Judeo-Christian God is more powerful than the Muslim god.

Chapter 2

I’ve heard another title used in connection with cockpit personnel, and that’s “Flight Engineer.”  Evidently some jumbo jets have a pilot, a co-pilot, and a Flight Engineer.  Was there a Flight Engineer in the cockpit of Flight 370?

It was my understanding, too, that jumbo jets normally have a pilot, a co-pilot, and a Navigator in the cockpit.  Was there a Navigator in the cockpit of Flight 370?

One of the “experts” on the TV news shows also said that there are two “jump seats” in the cockpit of that Boeing 777 that are sometimes used for airline personnel who want to catch a “hop” to another city.  Perhaps they have to go to the other city to become part of another flight crew, but are “deadheading” aboard the current flight in that they are not part of the current crew.

Such people might have shown up at the last minute before the plane pulled away from the terminal.  They might have been known by pilot or co-pilot, or they showed up in Malaysian Airline uniforms and had what seemed to be appropriate I.D.

Whether the deadheaders would have been included on the manifest, if they showed up at the last minute is not known.

It was known that there were two Iranian passengers on Flight 370 who were traveling on stolen Passports.  Malaysian Airlines failed to check the available database on stolen passports, which might have taken an extra half minute for each of the 227 or so passengers.

Investigation suggested the two Iranian young men might have had legitimate purposes.  But if they had legitimate purposes, where is the need for using stolen passports?  Iran is a predominantly Muslim nation, so there are two more suspects.

Their tickets were apparently purchased by a Mr. Ali.  Where have I heard the name Ali before? Muhammad Ali is the name Cassius Clay changed his name to when he became a Muslim.

Some have said that we shouldn’t be profiling Muslims as probable terrorists.

But weren’t all the terrorists who perpetrated 9/11 Muslims?  The fact is, it’s a Muslim strategy, as we have seen, to use aircraft for mischief.  Maybe not all Muslims, but it only takes one per flight to do a great deal of damage.

But I think I’ve heard about pre-registration, or pre-check-in available in the U.S., which probably would speed up the verification of Passports.

Do you really want to risk the lives of your passengers, and the aircraft and its cargo by skipping the Passport verification?

It was also said that five passengers checked in at the airport, but failed to board the plane.  Seems like those five ought to be thoroughly checked out, and was their checked baggage all removed from the plane? (Which could have contained a bomb.)

If you bring checked baggage to go in the cargo bay, and then you don’t actually fly yourself, then it suggests that you’re expecting something bad to happen with the plane.

And I believe it’s against regulations to transport checked passenger baggage if the passenger doesn’t fly on the same plane with his baggage.

Of course, someone could have a bomb in their checked baggage, and board the plane if their intent was to become a Muslim martyr.

It was said that the cockpit door locks when you close it.  But that co-pilot was known to have let two Australian young women into the cockpit on a previous flight, very much against the rules.

Who else was let into the cockpit unauthorizedly on Flight 370?

From time to time, wouldn’t one or the other of the pilots have to leave the cockpit to use a restroom, or open the door to receive food or beverages from a stewardess?

So, as the cockpit door is opened from inside if that pilot is confronted by someone with a weapon, that could be a way of someone getting into the cockpit.

It was said that one of the passengers was an Aviation Engineer, but what role he might have played in the events of Flight 370 was not discussed.

If there had been a catastrophic event on the plane, some kind of distress signal would have been expected.  If something had partially disabled the plane, the pilots would probably have requested a place for an emergency landing.

No such request nor distress signals were received.

One of the talk show hosts wondered why none of the passengers had used a cell phone to call out.  But when an aircraft is at cruising altitude, it is too distant from cell towers on the ground.

Or, over the water, they don’t have cell towers in the ocean.

I understand that planes can be equipped with an electronic device that will work like a cell tower, and relay calls to the ground, but they reported that Flight 370 was not so equipped.

There is another kind of phone that probably would have worked, a satellite phone.  But satellite phones are far less common than cell phones.

It was thought by some that Flight 370, after turning West, continued to fly for maybe six or seven hours, based on pings thought to be received from the plane.  But a data field should have accompanied the pings, but the data field was absent.

So it’s not for sure that the pings were from Flight 370, and then also, someone said the pings could have come from an aircraft on the ground.

Two theories were presented on a possible destination if the plane did continue to fly west.  One theory was that Flight 370 was headed northwest toward Turkmenistan.

But in that case, it seems unlikely that the plane would have avoided radar detection by costal radars as the plane approached land.

But former Ambassador, John Bolton, has suggested that a coastal radar operator might have been afflicted with “temporary blindness” due to one of three possible reasons: 1) bribery, 2) ideology (such as wanting to do something to please the Muslim god, or 3) corruption.

The other theory was that Flight 370 was headed southwest into the Indian Ocean.  But there’s not much down there, except for over a hundred islands, most of which are uninhabited.

It was said that there are some old airstrips left over from World War 2.  But unless they became official airports, they’ve no doubt fallen into disrepair after sixty eight years.

One expert said that if the plane did land at such a place, it would no doubt have been unable to take off again.

Former Ambassador John Bolton on one of the TV shows sarcastically said, “The War on Terror is over, so nothing can happen.”  Bolton knows the war on terror is not over.  I think he was poking fun at the President.

Al Qaeda is still around.  The Taliban is still around.  If the war on terror is over, who is it that recently retook the city of Fallujah, after the Americans took it in the war?

The satellite that collects ACARS data is apparently called Inmarsat, and is owned by a British company.

Maybe we should ask them, or Rolls Royce, or Boeing for more information.

Malaysia is asking for more satellite information from the U.S., China, and France.

Apparently, after the left turn, the plane jerked up in altitude to forty five thousand feet, and then dropped to twenty three thousand feet, suggesting a possible struggle in the cockpit.

In one report, it was thought that the rate of descent was forty thousand feet per minute.  But one of the experts said that the aircraft was not capable of descending that fast unless it were put into a nosedive, from which it might not have recovered.

It was pointed out that at forty five thousand feet, because of the very thin air, the plane would have been in danger of stalling, ceasing to fly.

Someone said that at forty five thousand feet, someone in the cockpit could have depressurized the passenger area, resulting in the death of the passengers.

Mary Schiavo, who has done aviation accident investigation told of another case where the plane climbed to forty two thousand feet, and the jet engines couldn’t cope with the very thin air, and flamed out.

Of course, the engines in that case may not have been the same engines as were on Flight 370.

Jet engines must take in air at the front, which is then compressed by the compressor blades, and then mixed with the jet fuel for combustion.

But if you get jet engines up to a high enough altitude, there’s just not enough air to allow them to keep functioning.

The Malaysian Prime Minister was quoted recently as saying the Flight 370 was “deliberately diverted.”

Another possibility was a pilot suicide, and this was said to have happened with Silkair Flight 185 in 1997, where the pilot deliberately crashed the plane into the water.

Remember Major Hasan of the Fort Hood Massacre?  He was thought to be a good Muslim.  The U.S. Army had provided his education, and he was counseling people with post-traumatic stress disorder.

He seemed to be a proper soldier until a certain thing happened.  Hasan got orders to the war zone.  If you’re in the military, they can send you wherever they need you.  But Hasan didn’t want to go to the war zone.

So Hasan found a solution.  He radicalized himself.  He got his guns and started shooting people.  Sooner or later, someone would shoot him, and he’d get to die as a Muslim Martyr, and go straight to heaven, he thought.

Chapter 3

Some Muslim young men have been told that as Muslim Martyrs, they’ll go to a heaven where they’ll get 72 virgins to be their wives.

While some Muslim clerics have taught that, there is no such place.  Jesus said that in heaven there is no marrying nor giving in marriage.  Again, the Muslims have their Theology wrong.

But things didn’t go the way Major Hasan wanted them to.  The bullets that were shot into him didn’t kill him, they only wounded him.

The Hasan story is another example of “suicide by cop,” (attempted).  There was a man in a high speed chase on one of our freeways.  Probably ten police cars were chasing him.

Then he pulled over.  So did the police, and started getting out of their cars.  The man they were chasing got out of his car with a gun in hand which he pointed at the cops.  What did the cops do with this guy pointing a gun at them?  They shot him.

Seems like it turned out the man’s gun had no ammunition, but of course, the cops had no way of knowing that.

Someone pointed out that if Flight 370 had headed northwest toward Turkmenistan, it would have been required to submit a flight plan wherever it intended to land.

And the longer Flight 370 remained in the air, the greater the likelihood that someone would have discovered their location, using military or civilian aircraft and radar.

John Hansman, a Professor of Aeronautics at M.I.T., thinks it was not an intruder who was the perpetrator, but that it was an “inside job,” apparently meaning Malaysian Airlines personnel.

Hansman has suggested that Flight 370 might have crashed into the Himalayas.

Someone on TV suggested that if it were known that a certain passenger would occupy a certain reserved seat on the plane, a mechanic or cleaning person could have placed a weapon at that seat, perhaps inside the seat cushion, prior to the boarding of the passengers.

There was a passenger aircraft disappearance perhaps eighty years ago.  Think it was in South America.  The plane crashed into a mountain and sank down into the snow.  Then more snow fell.  After about fifty years, pieces of the wreckage, sliding farther down the mountain began to emerge.

The cause of the crash was lack of knowledge.

Back then, they didn’t know about the jet stream, which was blowing laterally across the plane, pushing it to its right.  Navigation was more primitive back then.  The plane was not at the position that the Navigator thought it was.  All of a sudden, there’s a mountain in front of you, and the plane crashed into it.  It’s my guess that clouds obscured the mountain until it was too late for a successful correction .

They say there are now twenty five nations looking for Flight 370.

In my youth, I was a Ham Radio Operator.  The frequency coming out of the transmitter was determined by a quartz crystal in the transmitter.

You could modulate a carrier wave with voice information from a microphone.  But I communicated by Morse Code.  The Morse Code key would turn on and off the carrier wave coming out of the transmitter.

Something like that could probably be used to generate counterfeit pings.  Why would someone do that?  To throw off the investigation, and conceal the location of the aircraft.

Probably a background check should be done on every passenger and crew member, and on all ground personnel having anything to do with Flight 370.

But are the satellites not recording snapshots every thirty minutes or some other period of time.  Can’t someone look at those snapshots and see where Flight 370 went?

On TV, if they’re investigating a fictitious story where a convenience store was robbed, Officer Munch (Richard Belzer) tells the convenience store manager, “We need to see your security camera video tapes for the past twenty four hours.”  They hope to identify the perpetrator from the video tapes.

Can’t we do that with the satellites?

I believe it was Consultant Richard Quest on CNN’s Candy Crowley show who said that experts have ruled out malfunction on Flight 370.

Someone suggested that if Flight 370 landed somewhere, perhaps it could be used later as a missile, like against the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001.

The plane was apparently only twelve years old (about 2.5 years in automobile years).

It was said that the left turn from the proper flight path was pre-programmed into Flight 370’s computer before the plane took off from Kuala Lumpur.

One expert on TV said that medications such as those for controlling cholesterol can cause loss of memory and hinder spatial perception.  What kinds of medications were the people in the cockpit on?

So how can we know which airlines should not be used?  It seems to me very undesirable to fly on a national airline of a nation predominantly Muslim for reasons already mentioned.  Someone might want to kill you as a service to God, like Jesus said.

It’s my idea to avoid going to Muslim nations, unless there’s a very compelling reason to do so.  Muslims tend to have a mindset that Infidels (non-Muslims) need to be eliminated.

Chapter 4, Update as of 03/22/14

The Prime Minister of Australia announced that debris had been spotted by satellite in the Indian Ocean, approximately 1,400 miles Southwest of Perth, Australia.

So the search began for that debris.  But the satellite data was already four days old.

The longest dimension of the largest piece of debris was around eighty feet.  So then, it could possibly be a wing of a Boeing 777.  Or, it could be an intermodal shipping container of the kind in wide use now.

If an empty shipping container had come loose from a cargo ship in rough seas, it might have floated for a few hours before it took on enough water to sink to the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

If it were a wing of a 777, it would contain a fuel tank.  One of the theories is that the plane flew until it ran out of jet fuel.  Then the wing tank would be empty, and would float for a while.  But those wing tanks have vents, so water may have gotten into the tank through the vents, and then sunk the wing.

The senior pilot, Mr. Shah, was in court the day before his “red eye” flight scheduled for that night.  While it may not have been illegal for him to do that, it seems like inappropriate behavior for that pilot who should have been at home in bed, getting eight hours of sleep before the seven hour flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Mr. Shah was seen wearing a T-shirt that said, “Democracy is Dead.”  I guess things in Malaysia hadn’t been going the way he thought they should.  His purpose for being in court was to see the trial of his friend, Anwar Ibrahim, who was found guilty of sodomy, and sentenced to five years in prison.

I don’t know that Ibrahim was a homosexual, and some suggested that this was purely a political move against Ibrahim, who was an opposition leader in Malaysia.  This could have left Mr. Shah very much distraught and depressed.

Shah was said to have been studying Atheism, suggesting that Islam was not satisfying to him, and left an unfilled hole.  I know that there is only one God, and that He doesn’t call himself Allah anywhere in the Bible.

If there is a being, Allah, it must be one of Satan’s demons.

God is a three-in-one God.  There’s God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Ghost.

In view of these three things, the T-shirt, the Atheism studies, and the court case, together with insufficient sleep, Shah might have been suicidal.

Or, he may still have been enough of a Muslim that he decided that it was time to become a Muslim martyr by killing a bunch of “Infidels” (non-Muslims) together with himself by crashing the plane into land or into the water, similar to Muslim suicide bombers.

When Major Hasan of the Fort Hood Massacre, who was thought to be a good Muslim, got orders to a place that he didn’t want to go to, Hasan decided to become a Muslim Martyr, and started killing people.

I understand that Israel has tightened its aviation security as a result of Flight 370.  Jumbo jets were used on 9/11/2001 by Muslim terrorists as missiles to destroy the World Trade Center in New York City.  Perhaps someone hopes to use the Flight 370 jumbo jet in that manner.

But I believe too much is being made by the media of the deletion of files on the hard drive in the computer of Shah’s flight simulator.  It has been said that flight simulator software requires huge amounts of space on a hard drive.

The explanation might simply be that Shah got some new software, and deleted old software to make room for the new.

On the other hand, if the F.B.I. investigation shows that Shah was using the simulator to practice evading radar, or to fly into strange remote landing strips, that could be a smoking gun.

Someone has said that if it had been a fire that destroyed the transponder and ACARS, then how did the high frequency, very high frequency, and ultra high frequency radios continue to work?

It was said that one of the Iranian (probably Muslim) passengers with the stolen passports was trying to get to Germany to meet with his mother.

But if you’re trying to get to Germany, why would you fly north from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing?  And if you’re a legitimate person, why would you be using a stolen passport?

It was announced this morning that the Chinese have a new satellite image of debris measuring seventy four feet by forty three feet at a location in the Indian Ocean about seventy miles from where the Aussies have been searching.

But again, the image is four days old.

Australian planes have had to fly for four hours out to the search area, search for two hours, and then fly four hours to get home, and they say there has been very bad weather in the search area.

The Navy’s P8 Poseidon search plane is capable of being refueled in-flight, but there’s the question of whether the Navy can justify the expense, and allocation of resources.  The Navy can’t put all its ships and planes in the Indian Ocean because it has tasks to accomplish at other places in the world.