The last that I heard the Aussies heard on 4 separate occasions pinging consistent with a black box or voice recorder. Then the pinging ceased, probably because the batteries ran out. They have a search area off of the west coast of Australia and are now using a robotic submarine and have not located anything after 7 dives. The depth in this area is over 15,000 ft so this could take a very long while.
I tend to believe that this was a willful act, due to the fact that it appears that the plane made some deliberate turns (possibly to avoid some radar and/or cell towers) and that the pilot signed off to the malaysian air traffic controller in a casual manner after the plane had already made a racking turn with no indication of the turn or of any trouble. I believe that the ACARS communication system and the transponder on the B777 were already turned off by this transmission as well...yet no mention of it in the captain's last transmission. The reason that I tend to believe that it was one of the pilots (probably the captain) was because if there was a hijacking going on he wouldn't have made his last transmission so casual and could have thrown in a code word such as "PAN" or even another word that made no sense to alert the controllers. It is possible, however, that there was someone else flying the plane at this point and that the hijacker make the call. Also, it seems that this captain had ties to a Muslim group in Malaysia that had affiliations with Al Qaeda and had actually attended a trial earlier that week where his group's leader was convicted of some trumped up charges. There was a picture of the captain, who attended the trial, where he was wearing a t-shirt that said that "democracy is dead". I also have heard that his wife and children had just left him. He would be a prime suspect in my opinion. His model for this murder/suicide would be the Egypt Air flight over Canada that also was a deliberate act by the pilot.
Where Is Malaysian Flight 370?
Moderator: Global Moderator