[gandalftb]

There are 14 different levels of either data or voice communication systems on the 777. To disable most of them, a skilled operator would have to leave the cockpit, lift a rug behind the cockpit door, open a floor hatch, descend a four step ladder into the electronics bay below the cockpit. The circuit breakers are labeled, including the ACARS breaker. However, there is a second unlabeled ACARS breaker that only trained service techs would know about.

These are all highly intentional acts requiring training that pilots aren't given, or would care about.

The only point to disabling so many systems would be to hide the bearing of the aircraft from ground radar and the radar of other aircraft.

Regarding the military radar tracking that showed extreme changes in altitude, some military radars can track the altitude of a "non-cooperative" target. However, tracking is imprecise at longer ranges due to the very narrow vertical beam width broadcast.

The 777 is certified to about FL430 so FL450 is flyable but the decompression would cause most passengers to pass out. In my opinion the pilot did so to stop an attempt by passengers to retake the cabin. The pilot can also dump the cabin pressure and a few minutes at that altitude would kill nearly everyone in the cabin.

[Patriot Babe]

This morning CNN stated it was Lithium Batteries that was aboard on the plane and that may have caused an electronic shut down.

[gandalftb]

I believe the pilot or pilots intended to fly on to India and degrade a ground target.

Likely, the maneuvers used up too much fuel and the pilot, realizing he couldn’t make the target, decided to nose-in to the Bay of Bengal before they were spotted by Indian radar.

Flying to the end of the aircraft’s range uses up fuel that would float to the surface and cause an easily detected fuel slick.

Choosing their flight plan likely considered that Thai and Burmese military radar are usually turned off after 2300.

[WorkingClassFilth]

I haven’t been following all the news about this aircraft so my questions might be old hat and already hashed over in other threads. Here goes:

Is there a possibility of this aircraft being taken as you describe and being flown to another country within its fuel range without being detected? Seems like a stretch in this age of electronics but in this way, the passengers and crew might be used as hostages or killed but the intact aircraft could have its markings changed and the electronics modified to fit the profile of another aircraft, airline and/or flight plan at a later date and attack another target like a Trojan horse. Maybe something coming into Dulles. Seems to me that loading the plane with passengers and getting as close to a target with innocents to add ‘cover’ for visual contact from fighter protection might be a very real ploy. In addition, the grisly choice of shooting down the aircraft with innocents onboard and protecting a target would still make propaganda either way for terrorists.

Excuse my post if this is redundant and already covered elsewhere.

[Aqua225]

I would hope that any military radar could track a uncooperative target. I mean... I wouldn’t expect a bomber to present itself willingly, unless it was flying the normal routes, and it’s sponsor thought it could get away with presenting a friendly IFF.

It’s funny that it is called “transponder” nowadays. It used to be called the IFF. Which is more common, I wonder, in the aero industrial complex?

I suspect at least with US military radar, we have very high accuracy even at crazy distances. A function of our well developed IT infrastructure. After all, accuracy is really more down to the mathematical signal analysis, not so much the radar analog section in the corner (though the cleaner the radio receiver, the better the computer results). The faster the computer, the more complex the filtering algo can be, since they will still complete in near real time. We probably have some amazing stuff that can re-analyze digitally recorded radar signals in non-real time to look over events of some question.

I’ve also wondered how much space based radar we have around the planet as well.

[Procyon]

The 777 is certified to fly to 43,000 feet because from that height the aircraft is able to safely descend to 12,500 feet altitude in case of cabin decompression before the passenger supplemental oxygen is depleted.

If it's true the aircraft was observed on radar at 45,000 feet, I will speculate that the pilot on his own oxygen staged a cabin depressurization, the passenger oxygen masks deployed but were depleted and everyone but the cockpit crew died. There is a supplemental portable oxygen tank for cabin crew but I don't know how long that lasted. Apparently in the Helios event a cabin attendant survived long enough to get into the cockpit after everyone else was dead but was unable to fly the aircraft.

[SE Mom]

Megyn Kelly is doing very informative show noq

[bigbob]

Here’s a panoramic view inside the avionics bay of a 777:

http://www.hawkeyemedia.com/panos/777_Avionics.asp

Which is why Occam says it’s far more plausible that sudden impact caused the ACARS to stop sending data than any human act. Especially since one was received after 5 hours.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Radar Suggests Jet Shifted Path More Than Once
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/world/asia/malaysia-military-radar.html?smid=tw-bna

[SE Mom]

Unbelievable ...all of it.

[3boysdad]

I’m leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when I’ll be back again!

[garjog]

I've got it figured out!

[yield 2 the right]

Prayers for the innocent lives lost.....

[trebb]

If the truth ever comes out, nobody will recognize or trust it because of all the crap coming out as “possible theories”.