The Malaysian Insider
March 25, 2014
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced last night that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 was lost at a remote location in the middle of the Indian Ocean, possibly ending weeks of speculations as to the plane’s final stop.
That did not, however, answer several key questions which have been lurking ever since the Boeing 777 disappeared on March 8, sparking what aviation experts call the most mysterious plane tragedy in history.
Britain’s Daily Mirror looks at five questions still begging for answers.
1. No confirmed debris, so did plane really crash?
Investigators know where a plane crashed, even before finding debris. A single piece of wreckage is enough to determine whether the plane exploded or crashed. The key answer lies in the black box, which may take years to discover.
2. Where’s the black box?
This usually orange piece of equipment is about a foot long and can survive virtually any impact. Search teams are using a beacon locator to detect signals from the black box, which can last about two weeks more from now. Finding the black box is no easy task: Air France flight 447’s black box was found two years after the first wreckage was found in 2009.
3. Why did nobody call from the plane?
Passengers would have tried to make calls or send texts to loved ones, had they known there was an emergency. But at 10,000ft, and at a plane’s speed, nobody on board would get a phone signal.
4. Why no one noticed plane diversion?
At the centre of the mystery is the fact that radars did not detect this flying jet. This is perhaps why the conclusion was made that the plane could have flown to the southern Indian Ocean, where no radars are available. If it flew to the north, it was unlikely that it could pass by many heavily guarded countries without being detected. The question remains, however, on the failure to detect the plane near Malaysian air space.
5. Pilots, fire, or someone else?
Another belief is that the plane’s path was deliberately changed by someone onboard, first to fly west back towards Malaysia and then northwest. Did Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah and co-pilot Fariq Abd Hamid have anything to do with this? Such a speculation is fuelled by the fact that all communications had been turned of. Was it someone else? Or was it caused by some mechanical failure due to fire? – March 25, 2014.
#1 by Justice Ipsofacto on Tuesday, 25 March 2014 - 5:56 pm
Just a word about fire.
I witnessed a 3 storey building burning somewhere in the city centre last year.
It took the fire just a brief 1 hour or thereabout to gut the entire building and that was with two fire engines fighting away using water (i think).
So imagine an airplane which in effect is a pressurised vessel at high altitude and carrying large quantity of fuel and a load of highly inflamable batteries.
The plane would have exploded quite soon (nearer andaman if the fire was in fact the cause of the diversion) and surely not (wot?) 6? 7? hours later somewhere in the middle of the indian ocean!
#2 by john on Tuesday, 25 March 2014 - 6:11 pm
The NZ guy on the Vietnamese oil rig is the key witness, having reported that he saw a plane, initially was lighted inside, then after was dark and had pointed to the direction it went. ( this collaborate to electrical “fire” in nature ).
But, up till now there had been no news on this key witness’s account – it should be check, investigated thorough. Don’t think NZ guy is so free or insensitive to tell tales and he was indeed anxious whether his report on this sighting was received well and understood.
But, so far these officials are REALLY only coordinators, worst messenger boys and NOT in-charged. (even if they are, are not to the level demanded here.)