U.S. officials, frustratingly unnamed in the media, are now saying that a pair of communications systems on board Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 were shut off 14 minutes apart. The inference to be taken from that is that it did not go down suddenly or catastrophically.
The data reporting system was shut down at 1.07 am and the transponder was turned off at 1.21 am just after the the pilot signed off to Malaysian air traffic controllers with ‘All right, good night,’ and before the Boeing 777 apparently changed course and turned west.
According to investigators this indicated that the switch-off could have been a deliberate act and officials told ABC News that the two communications devices were ‘systematically shut down’.
That has led the US investigating team to become ‘convinced there was manual intervention’ which in turn means it was not an accident or massive malfunction that caused the plane to cease to be airborne.
Despite these two crucial tracking devices being inoperative, the plane still sent signals to a satellite after the aircraft went missing in the form of ‘pings’ – rather like a cellphone does, even if it is not switched on.
Reports suggest that the plane continued to fly for four to five hours after it disappeared.
Flight 370 is a Boeing 777. A 777′s maximum range is 9,395 miles when fully fueled. So fully fueled, it can fly from Singapore to New York. Or from Malaysia to Moscow.
That becomes relevant if, as some now fear, the plane did not crash but was instead deliberately stolen and disappeared. It’s possible that it could have been landed in some remote abandoned airfield, of which there are thousands all over the world. Or it could have been taken to some newly constructed, but concealed, airstrip anywhere within a very wide territory near the point at which it disappeared.
Obviously, a plane the size of a 777 can carry more than just human cargo.
Gen. Tom McInerney casually wondered this morning on Fox News whether maybe jihadis targeted the plane because they need a delivery mechanism for, er, a nuclear weapon.
The search area is vast. It reaches from northwest Australia up into Pakistan.
Much more on the next page.
When MH370 disappeared and turned sharp left, it continued to fly between navigational waypoints according to the satellite pings, indicating that it was still being actively piloted — after the communications systems had been shut off and the crew had gone silent.
The U.S. is moving surveillance aircraft to the search area, and India is expanding to search a chain of largely uninhabited Andaman Islands off its coast.
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1) Weakness emboldens evil
2) Two Iranians on one way tickets (you have to admire the frugality of terrorists, they will spend millions to set up, train, hide, recruit for a grand gesture, but will only spend for a one way ticket, not a return flight). Ok, ok...Copenhagen, but that's as far as we go.
I suppose if they can flight plan over friendly territories they might be able to hopscotch to Damascus.
From there, they could flight plan over Beirut, get out to sea and double back toward Tel Aviv for an "emergency landing".
This hopscotch/double back plan might take six months. Just enough time for Iran to build whatever they are building, make the money off the Kerry/Obama con job...and blow Tel Aviv to smithereens on Yom Kippur for the ultimate day of atonement.
The one thing about Kerry/Obama/Clinton/Power/Rice corruption and treason...it keeps the next episode a real cliffhanger.
Russia invading, China expanding, Iran plotting, Venezuela exploding...we live in interesting times. Typhoid Barry has spread his virus around the globe. If you live on the coasts, wear lead underwear. Flyover country never looked so good.
That's nothing.
Think about EMP...
A plane is just what you need...
NOW I am worried
Here's how some of the families are handling things.
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/se-asia/story/blog-mh370-confusion-too-brutal-even-hardened-chinese-20140314
SOSUS is monitored by Woods Hole and other agencies as the USN does not rely on it as heavily as in the past. Satellites have largely replaced it as a tool for finding and tracking subs. A cold war tool that is still around and may have heard this plane land. With good triangulation on a sound the spot can be pinpointed within a few miles give or take - depending on distance from the hydrophones to the 'event'.
But that doesn't mean we'd hear about it immediately, especially if the naval authorities didn't want to advertise the continued use of SOSUS.
I think this may have changed in the past 48 hours as the released evidence begins to point to something supremely sinister afoot. But for the first four days, I say that CNN covered it more than Fox, full stop.
Sorry, you are (or were) wrong.
Now, that crash could have been an accident or intentional on the part of whomever was in control.
OR... a scenario I haven't heard anyone mention yet, and one which I think is not at all unlikely is that assuming there was a terrorist / controller with a gun to the pilot's head (or whatever method was used to compel), the pilot, or another person may have tried to attack the attacker. Probably the intention was to reclaim control -- but as may well have happened, in the struggle, the plane crashed.
Now the plane is at the bottom of the ocean and it may be years if ever before any physical clues are found.
That's crossed my mind. Well, not necessarily NYC.
To get a good range EMP burst the trigger needs to be an exo-atmospheric nuc burst. Compton-effect electron range is short inside the atmosphere.
http://missilethreat.com/kennedy-on-the-effects-of-emp-attack/
Originally published at Wallstreet Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB122748923919852015-lMyQjAxMDI4MjI3MzQyODM5
Most industry is crowded around the coast and large river like Canton and Shanghai. You could still mess with 20 million people.
An EMP attack over China. Muslims groups flood Xinjiang and wrest it from China.
No more I-Phones, computers and so many other items imported to the U.S. from China.
New factories will spring up in the U.S. but this will take time. I the meantime there is a lot of economic & political confusion in America and China. Also a large death toll in China.
They want The Holy Land, and they want North America. China is a better prize for them, but it's not as much of a symbol.
In short - it may not take an EMP over any of China's cities to cause massive upheaval. Just a bit of patience.