Egyptair Flight MS804 Disappears From Radar — UPDATED

UPDATED 5/21/16: Egyptian authorities have released photos of MS804 debris recovered from the ocean. Here’s a cropped version of one of them:

debris_pics_egyptair_07-large_trans++aivqAvBJWkUV8VzepAMjBUSXDVobHLbZZp-A_Kknc4M

The size, the shape of the edges, the amount of exposed honeycomb and even the presence of fasteners is quite reminiscent of MH370 debris found in the western Indian Ocean, especially “No Step.” Of course, marine fouling is absent.

UPDATE 5/20/16: CNN has posted a screengrab showing ACARS error messages just before MS804 crashed:

image001
Right-click and open in a new tab to expand

 

As you can see in the diagram below, there is a lavatory directly behind the captain’s seat. If there is thick smoke in there, it could penetrate down into the avionics bay below:

image004

Gerry Soejatman points out: “It appears that aircraft may have had an in-flight fire and if so, the aircraft maneuvers could be due to Smoke Removal Emergency Procedures, which involves descending the aircraft to 10,000 feet and also opening the cockpit window.”

A reader interprets the ACARS messages:

00:26 ANT-ICE R WINDOW; a fault is in either the right sliding window or fixed window (not the windshield).
00:26 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR; the right window heat control unit detects a problem with the sliding window sensor circuit.
00:26 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE; smoke detected in the lavatory.
00:27 AVIONICS SMOKE; smoke is detected in the Avionics bay.
00:28 R FIXED WINDOW SENSOR; the right window heat control unit detects a problem with the fixed window sensor circuit.
00:29 AUTO FLT FCU 2 FAULT; autopilot flight control unit (Mode control panel) channel 2 is faulted. Channel 1 still OK so no big deal.
00:29 F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT; the number 3 spoiler elevator computer is faulted. Number 1 and 2 still OK.

If a bomb has gone off near the forward toilet the blast may have damaged the right window heating somehow. There would be a short delay until the toilet smoke detector goes off.

 

ORIGINAL POST, 5/19/2016:

At timing of writing, 6.15am Eastern Daylight Time, Egyptian and Greek military boats and planes are still hunting for a missing airliner, Egyptair Flight 804, which disappeared over the Mediterranean Sea at approximately 2.30am local time. The plane was three and a half hours into a scheduled flight from Paris, France to Cairo, Egypt.

Airbus has put out a statement which reads, in part:

The aircraft involved, registered under SU-GCC was MSN (Manufacturer Serial Number) 2088 delivered to Egyptair from the production line in November 2003. The aircraft had accumulated approximately 48,000 flight hours. It was powered by IAE engines. At this time no further factual information is available.

Here’s a screenshot of the ADS-B data reported by FlightAware. Note that this data is considered highly unreliable–but at the moment it’s all I’ve got:

MH804 FlightAware

Open in a separate tab to see full resolution. Note that the disappearance is sudden — the ADS-B doesn’t show any descent profile. This would be consistent with a catastrophic loss of electrical power (as perhaps due do a bomb or missile strike) or to someone deliberately turning off the electronic forms of communication, as was done in MH370. Below is a plot of the plane’s last known location.

CizhT4vXIAApz25

Worth pointing out that the weather at the time was fair, suggesting that the incident was not weather-related, like AirAsia 8501 or Air France 447. I find it interesting that the disappearance took place right after the plane crossed from one Flight Information Region (FIR) to another–that is to say, when transferring from one air traffic control zone to another. MH370 disappeared under similar circumstances (also in fair weather in the middle of the night.) I would be very interested to see the ATC transcripts–in particular, to know if the plane signed off with the Greek controllers and failed to contact Egyptian ones.

The Mediterranean is a heavily-traveled body of water, both by sea and by air. It is heavily monitored. One can only presume that at the time it vanished from secondary radar screens it was being tracked by primary (military) radar as well. What’s more, based on historical precedent, when planes get into trouble at altitude like this, they tend to come down very close to their last known position. At the exact moment I write this, no debris has been found, but given the good weather conditions and the very small area to search, we should expect wreckage to start turning up very soon.

The Independent notes, “In March, an EgyptAir plane flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked and forced to land in Cyprus by a man wearing what authorities said was a fake suicide belt. He was arrested after giving himself up.” In air crash circles, the name Egyptair is synonymous with EgyptAir 900, which crashed off Nantucket when one of the junior pilots deliberately steered into the ocean. At this point, both terror and suicide remain possible causes in the current incident.

UPDATE 7am EDT: The Guardian has just published this timeline, put out by Greece’s civil aviation department:

02:24: EgyptAir flight 804 from Paris to Cairo enters Greek airspace, air traffic controller permissions it for the remainder of its course.

02:48: The flight is transferred to the next air traffic control sector and is cleared for exit from Greek airspace. “The pilot was in good spirits and thanked the controller in Greek.”

03:27: Athens air traffic control tries to contact the aircraft to convey information on the switch of communications and control from Athens to Cairo air traffic. In spite of repeated calls, the aircraft does not respond, whereupon the air traffic controller calls the distress frequency, without a response from the aircraft.

03:29: It is above the exit point (from Greek airspace).

03:29:40: The aircraft signal is lost, approximately 7 nautical miles south/southeast of the KUMBI point, within Cairo FIR.
Immediately the assistance of radars of the Hellenic Air Force is requested to detect the target, without result.

03:45: The processes of search and rescue are initiated, simultaneously informing the Flight Information Region of Cairo.

It seems, then, that unlike MH370, the flight crew here did not sign off with ATC before leaving their airspace.

358 thoughts on “Egyptair Flight MS804 Disappears From Radar — UPDATED”

  1. @Rob, Thanks for the tip, I just got off the phone with the writer, Alexander Smith, he hasn’t been able to reach Schalk Luckhoff, so what was in the piece was basically based on the Afrikaans-language report in my last report. I’m still trying to get in touch with Luckhoff. Meanwhile the ATSB has released a full-res version of the photo with EXIF data intact and I’ve forwarded it to people who can analyze it for signs of tampering.

  2. @Simonds, The Egyptian claim seems to be based on the idea that since the body parts are small, they must have blown apart by an explosion. But planes generally aren’t brought down by explosions that rip everything to smithereens. All it takes is a small amount (e.g. the size of a soda can, supposedly, in the case of MetroJet) to cause a rupture in the pressure hull; it’s the subsequent impact with the ground that does the violence to the plane and its occupants.

    The most violent kind of impact is when a plane flies into the ground at flying speed — think Germanwings or SilkAir. MH17, which was blown apart at altitude, produced intact bodies and relatively large aircraft fragments.

    Based on what we’ve seen of the debris so far, it looks more like Germanwings than MH17. I.e., an intact airframe flying into the surface.

  3. @ Rand

    You say “The BBC report … is perhaps indicative of a catastrophic failure at altitude with the ACARS and flight trajectory data being the product of the aircraft disintigrating as it plummeted to the sea.”

    This seems unlikely to me (but I am not an expert, nor a pilot). Given that the SDU unit that transmits ACARS data is at the rear of the plane, and the ACARS error messages related to faults at the front of the plane, the plane must surely have been intact when whose messages were transmitted?

  4. @Eoghan The conventional view would be that the ACARS reporting correlates with a specific chain of events aboard the aircraft. I am rather advancing the idea that perhaps we can’t really read all that much of anything into the ACARS reporting. No distress call and 7 ACARS events; this could indicate a rather sudden loss of stable flight dynamics.

    The Sim exercise, however, with the pilot describing the smoke clearing procedure, is congruent with the two turns reported by the Greeks.

    As for any quotes/analyses of air accident investigators, well, I’d rather trust Jeff’s analysis regarding the size of the human remains. Not many air accident investigators are all that experienced when all is said and done.

  5. Can black box float? Not alone indeed, but attached to a fragment of the airframe, possibly with ripped off honeycomb skin or even together with the whole vertical stabiliser?

  6. @Rand
    Don’t you think the timespan of 3 min. of those ACARS messages could be telling?
    I mean an average descent of ~200ft/sec from 37.000ft till water surface doesn’t fit with a direct high speed dive from that altitude.
    There must have been a ‘kind off’ controled flight for at least a longer part of that descent before the plane went into a high speed dive.

    The Greek version would fit this scenario instead of the Egypt version of ‘no turns’.
    It’s weird to me two official statements are so basicly conflicting eachother.
    Your thoughts?

  7. Ok I’ve just played back FR 24 from this morning at exactly the same location and time, and once again, MSR (now 802) crosses a dotted flightpath at approx. 0045Z, apparently very close to UAE194.

    Just like the other night.

    MSR is being tracked by radar, UAE is ‘est’ but still, it is following a well trodden flight path so I don’t see why it would be far off its course.

    Is this usual, to have planes crossing apparently so close by at the same flight level – in all my watching of FR24 I never have seen this taking place.

    It seems like an accident waiting to happen, though obviously if it is just an estimated position it could be other than it looks.

    Just curious really.

  8. @Ge Rijn Nin hao! 😉 My only point, really, is that the ACARS reporting could be telling, or it could not. That is why I was curious to know if there was any publication of the ACARS reporting on the Metrojet crash, which, by reports, was almost certainly attributable to a bombing.

    Greece, Egypt…national FIR boundaries are apparently similar to relatively unpopulated national borders: there are subtleties of ambiguity and even spookiness to be found along them.

  9. @Victor,

    certainly – https://www.flightradar24.com/2016-05-24/00:30/12x/MSR802/9cdafbb

    I’m not sure whether this will work. It’s this morning’s playback.

    I’ve previously linked to screen shots of last Thursday’s playback on this blog post.

    If it doesn’t work, then direct yourself to the area above the Mediterranean, approximately where contact was lost with MSR804 last week, and set playback to 00:15UTC on Thursday May 19th. (or simply this morning)

    You can see MSR804/802 approaching from NNW and UAE from the West, and if you pause and zoom in, you ought to be able to see the dotted white flight path that UAE appears to be following.

    It also gives co-ordinates on the left.

    I’m certain there must be a rational/reasonable explanation for it; I’d just like to understand.

    I’ve asked FR already (twitter) but was only told the standard reply of ‘this is an artifact of playback’ and no further comment was forthcoming, on further requests, as to what about it exactly was an artifact.

    Let me know if you run into difficulties and I’ll walk you through it.

  10. Note: playback is x12. Pause button is helpful.

    Also: I notice both Flightaware and FR24 data for MSR804 ceases before this ‘crossover’ takes place, so it isn’t possible to verify the coordinates using their track logs (unless I am just botching it up, which is entirely possible) and UAE’s appear to be estimated for a short while in this location, but are available on either side of it (I think)

    https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flight/UAE194/history/20160518/2040Z/LPPT/OMDB/tracklog

  11. @Susie said, “MSR is being tracked by radar, UAE is ‘est’ but still, it is following a well trodden flight path so I don’t see why it would be far off its course.”

    If two planes cross a point at the same time, and one plane is reporting ADS-B data and the other is not, likely the plane without the ADS-B data is not where it is estimated to be. If it were, the ADS-B should have been captured.

  12. You are probably right; the thing is – where is it supposed to be?

    It appears too close for comfort with the MSR planes on at least two occasions – and if it’s following a straight line track, and tracked either side of the missing data, it’s hard to see how it could be far off its presumed location.

    If that makes sense.

  13. I think, having checked, it falls off ‘est’ entirely a minute or two later and comes back much further south and the path appears to have turned off well before the point at which it seems to be near to MSR.

    I’m still unsure what’s correct but I’m guessing such a close proximity to another plane on a regular basis would mean someone stupid in charge, so it’s unlikely to be genuine.

    Thanks for the input in any case.

  14. A heat source/fire developed, the consequences of the heat were detected by the right front window sensors just behind the galley/cockpit wall, then smoke was detected by the front left lavatory sensor. An electrical fire rapidely descended into the avionics bay and was detected by the sensor.

    The pilots did exactly what they are trained to: descend to FL140 asap to be able to depressurize to starve the fire of oxygen and then go lower as soon as the fire is out to avoid suffocating the passengers. Or they simply followed the smoke removal procedure which would be to go to FL100 and open the cockpit windows. But the fire got to an essential part in the avionics bay too fast, leaving the pilots with no means to maneuver the plane.

  15. @Rand

    Nin hao!
    I’m not only improving my englisch here but also picking up some chinese too!:-)

    And talking about chinese and FIR boudaries.. indeed what happens now in the South Chinese sea probably is an understatement.

    Those ACARS from the MetroJet crash/bombing sure could be interesting relating to MS804.
    But maybe only adding to all the controversy and conflicting reports allready exsisting.

  16. @Bardy

    But smoke was detected in the avionics bay just one minute after being detected in the lavatory, so possibly too fast to be explained as progress of the fire? More likely to be due to the smoke being drawn down to the avionics bay by the airflow towards the outflow valve.

    I think it more likely the fire was confined to the cockpit.

  17. Susie – Walid Shoebat is running a site full time out of his own pocket and his aviation theorizing is not that relevant to me. But who knew Anwar Ibrahim was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which would have been well known? Death by drowning??? We have struggled for over two years with the issue of motive. The 804 pilot was also chummy with senior MB figures, and his Al-Hurrah posts in Arabic. The hostess?

    But overall an interesting non reaction. Shoebat has such a non PC message that the media have rubbed him out and even tried to deny he was in the PLO. To me it’s not about his overall tone, it’s about info he has presented.

  18. MS804
    Debris field size?

    Any info on the size of the debris field for MS804. I have heard they are searching an area the size of Connecticut by one reporter. Any estimate of the original size of the debris field?

    Small original debris field size suggests impact with the water with an intact airplane.

    Large original size would suggest a breakup at altitude with small lighter less dense material travelling further with the wind prior to falling on the water.

  19. @Ken Goodwin

    The got the impression that the debris field was quite small, which as you say, suggests the plane was intact when it hit the water.

    The condition of the debris suggests a very high speed impact.

  20. @Ken Goodwin

    Quite different situation to the AirAsia crash, where the plane broke up in the air, and wreckage was spread over a wide area.
    The water is much deeper too, so it could take some time to find the main body of the aircraft.

  21. Susie – I’d say the Malaysian opposition has been badly mis-characterized. Anwar Ibrahim is a full blown Islamist(not a virtuous freedom campaigner) with ties to banned orgainzations. I suspect he is in fact a member of the Muslim Brotherhood – like a lot of “Mufti’s” taking up posts in Western countries. As an exercise, go around to your politicians and academics and ask them where do Mufti’s come from and how do they get there? You will get only blank looks. Shah was under Anwar’s wing. I have lamented the hang Shah mentality but I’m now drifting that way. He took the plane, it’s in the IO(somewhere) and some of our smartest have gotten carried away with what the data could reveal. I predict the debris anomalies will resolve themselves in due course.

    There are clear religious/political dimensions to the plane’s disappearance and I believe that foreign govts know EXACTLY what happened. Why I never bothered to check out Anwar I don’t know. I guess I just went along with that persecuted opponent mythology. The Malaysian govt may be a crime syndicate but I wouldn’t be throwing the doors of democracy open to the Muslim brotherhood – see what happened in Egypt? Yeah, that was some spring.

    Why guide a plane into a watery abyss?

    “He who is killed in the way of Allah is a martyr; he who dies naturally in the Cause of Allah is a martyr; he who dies of plague is a martyr; he who dies of a stomach disease is a martyr; AND HE WHO IS DROWNED IS A MARTYR.” [Sahih Muslim].

    The FMT now makes sense. The reboot makes sense. It was designed to damage the govt and it would have done a lot more if the western countries hadn’t circled the wagons to protect Najib as an ally against terrorism. And yes, the company Anwar keeps has no dilemma with political/religious murder

    I think we need to completely refocus on the Malaysian opposition. Anwar is an Islamist from way back. I’ve had my epiphany moment.

  22. Matty, if it was Shah, it was deliberate.

    If it was deliberate, he had a plan, a very specific plan.

    Have you figured out what his plan was ?

    Deduce his plan, and it leads directly to the plane. No need to “go past go”.

    Perhaps the Chinese have “deduced his plan” ?

  23. Here’s a link to a puzzling (?) account of the relationship between Anwar and Shah.

    It’s reported that a daughter of Anwar said:

    “She said that one of Anwar’s sons-in-law, married to her sister, is a Malaysia Airlines pilot which explains why Anwar had met in passing the pilot of the plane flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.”

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-02/29/c_135142018.htm

    Is Shah’s wife a daughter of Anwar (?)

    If not, who is the (other) pilot?

  24. Ventus45 – The pilot had a plan indeed. I say he knew what he was doing when he powered the SDU as he sailed away from radar. But maybe he carried on with high fuel consumption for the whole flight and didn’t set sail in economy mode. AP and suicide are not natural together – to me.

    Middleton – “Democracy is Dead”

    I had always interpreted this as a sort of lament. Now I don’t know. The Muslim Brotherhood is an extensive arm of political Islam and it has this concept called “Muruna”. It means putting on the clothes of your enemy for a time to achieve your aims. There is no way Anwar is dedicated to democracy. And of course, they never really had one.

  25. @Matty – Perth:

    If Shah’s wife is a daughter of Anwar (?) then it might be cogent to ponder why the media has been informed that the relationship between Anwar and Shah was ‘distant’.

    A son in law is not a ‘distant’ relation (?)

    The daughter would likely visit the grandfather regularly (he’s her father, after all) as would the children when younger (he’s their grandfather) and so presumably would the son-in-law, occasionally, as part of the visits by his wife.

    The daughter would be concerned about what is happening to her father. That would likely be relayed to her husband regularly.

  26. @Matty Your epiphany is palpable; you’re going to sleep well tonight!

    I can perceive your angle on Anwar and the Muslim Brotherhood (I like it), while suggesting that it does not necessarily implicate Shah. As for foreign governments being aware of what transpired, I would still stay that Malaysia kept them and others at arms length by way of status of forces agreements associated with the large US counter-terrorism presence in Malaysia, and ICAO protocols.

    The loss of MH370 was perhaps an incident of domestic terrorism, as explained by the general lack of strategic interest displayed by the US/west. It’s not that there is a cover-up of US knowledge of what transpired; it’s rather “informed disinterest”.

    I need to work…

  27. @all

    Getting back to MS804 for a moment – if one goes back and looks at 50 years worth of commercial airliner data one finds that sabotage (i.e. a bomb) and a mechanical failure are equally likely at cruise altitude. Mechanical failures at takeoff and approach are far more serious since the pilot has much less time to react to them, and hull losses at those flight stages due to mechanical issues are much more probable.

    In any case, that little nugget is just about totally useless relative to pointing at what might have happened,

  28. “Malaysia’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has admitted he is related to missing MH370 pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah.

    The admission comes after reports in Malaysia suggested Shah attended Ibrahim’s sodomy trial hours before flight MH370 took off.

    The 66-year-old Ibrahim, who has previously denied any connection with Shah, told the Straits Times that the pilot is in fact related to his son-in-law.

    “I am not denying that he [Zaharie] is related to one of my in-laws and that I have met him on several occasions,” Ibrahim said.

    “In fact, he is a close friend of Rasiah Sivarasa [a leading figure in Ibrahim’s PKR party], as we said before.”

    Ibrahim had previously said “I don’t recollect the name” of Shah, however he claimed he had “seen him at party meetings”, suggesting the pilot was politically active – something which has been widely denied.”

    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/flight-mh370-pilot-anwar-ibrahims-sodomy-trial-hours-before-take-off-1440736

    Shah would have been quite useful to Anwar and he was active in the party. They would have known each other. Anwar was a figure who underwent a lot of reinvention from 2011 onwards but his associations would have been well known to all. You don’t get a seat next to Sheik Al Qaradawi for being a tree hugger.

  29. @ Matty
    “But maybe he carried on with high fuel consumption for the whole flight and didn’t set sail in economy mode. AP and suicide are not natural together – to me.”

    So what are you suggesting ?

    As I see it, a plan is a plan, to a planned ending.

    You seem to be suggesting the plan ended with escaping primary radars, rebooting the SDU, then simply setting the AP to “somewhere” and then simply letting the plane fly itself to fuel exhaustion. That is not a plan, it is a cop-out.

    A plan, has to have an objective outcome, a desired result, an ending, a specific ending.

    The only thing that makes sense, is to have a plan, to set the AP, to fly it to “somewhere specific” to be reached by a “specific time”, most likely a meticulously planed position and time for “top of descent” (TOD), and then to do a “specific thing” (descend) to low level, check the sea state, and then, to maneuver for the ditch.

  30. Ventus45 – I’m saying there was possibly no AP after FMT. No fuel efficient cruising at all? He spent some tickets to get there and maybe stayed low. Maybe putting in absurd distance was not an issue here. Just by veering slightly further away from Australia the search area becomes too far for a viable air search. The meticulous planner would know this as well as we do. Why fly all that distance if you are more or less parallel to the WA coast and adjacent to Perth?

  31. @ventus45 @Matty Perth

    I couldn’t agree more with your suggestions of a very specific plan from start to ending, for you repeat in general post I did weeks ago with almost exactly the same suggestions.

    That also goes for posts I did weeks ago on motiv and the suggestion to look closer at Anwar Ibrahim and the connections between him and Shah.

    Other cases of Carl Jung’s synchronisity?

    Anyway I’m glad it’s brought up again both for I think too it’s still worth to take a much closer look at.

  32. @Matty

    He flew on an azimuth of 186deg after the FMT so that he would break into sunlight just before he needed to ditch.

    When he factored in the practical considerations of ditching in a remote, deep water area shortly after sunrise, the flight path chose itself.

  33. @Ge Rijn

    It’s nice when/if we can somehow work toward a consensus, you have to agree.

    Imagine if we had all been locked away in a jury room until we had a unanimous decision.
    I would have lost all my hair weeks ago.

  34. @Matty-Perth @ventus
    you present an angle, which has some merrit concerning the “Shah did it” scenario. Although it still lacks the logic of a plan, like ventus rightly states. The silence and even denial of Ibrahim and the opposition in the aftermath until today either shows that the plan went badly wrong and the opposition could not gain any advantage from the outcome, or that the disappearance of MH370 was not the plan of the opposition at all. That we look at a failure, like Victor implies in his CI scenario.
    Next thing I would ask, what kind of advantage does the present government have in keeping the involvement of the opposition under the carpet? It must be obvious to them and would present a perfect opportunity to mark Ibrahim and his followers as mass murders once and forever.

    We are still missing big junks in the plan and in the reason for handling the crime like it is done presently.

    That brings us back to to the FMT. I myself have not seen any plausible explanation (plan, cause, reason, happening) yet, which can connect the different actions prior and after the FMT.

    Or is the FMT and the further profile just a wrong assumption, which never happened that way ?

  35. @Matty Perth

    ‘Why fly all that distance if you are more or less parallel to the WA coast and adjectant to Perth’?

    As a suggested before; this route covers no land, no islands, no busy shipping lanes, no major flight paths, no radar covering.
    The area around the last ‘ping’ contains some of the deepest places in the IO with the Diamantina Trench under Broken Ridge and the Dordrecht Hole near reaching over 7km depth.
    And adjactent to Perth it’s still 300km further than the distance from Perth to Exmouth..

    Chosing a route with least changes of detection, if I was a pilot with this intentions I chose this south one.

    To the east (Pacific) would cover densely populated land, islands and very busy shipping lanes, flight paths and radar coverage.
    To the north the same or even more.
    To the west India and Diego Garcia with it’s sophisticated ‘over the horizon’ radar capabilitys are in the way.

    So the only logical and best route is to the south in this scenario.
    And with the specific end point with the intention to hide the plane and evidence as well as possible I’d choose for one of and the only deepest places in that area; the Diamantina trench or even better the Dordrecht Hole.

    And another reason to give credit to this scenario is how well it succeeded till now.
    He might even have taken the drift patterns into account of his plan.
    On the other hand a plan like this would need a meticulous and long preperation and maybe too ingenious to be exceptable.
    Still this scenario is one of the view that could fit all the ‘evidence’ till now.

    And the capabilitys and hard- and software (sophisticated home flight simulator and being a MAB flight instructor) available to this captain were such that he might well be one of the few who could prepare, plan and succesfully perform such a scenario.

  36. @RetiredF4

    Possibly the government didn’t want to make capital out of this might be because they had been leaning on him, because of his views and popularity with the man in the street. He had been very active on Facebook, not necessarily as a political activist, but as a champion of the poor.

    The government would not want this to come out in the open, which it could do if they decided to accuse him publicly?

  37. RetdF4 – I see the Malaysian govt over a barrel here. If they pointed the finger at the opposition they would be admitting that their airline is not safe. And they well know that the Islamist tentacles are everywhere in their region including their own armed forces. But Anwar would need to distance himself from the actions of his supporters if they reflected badly on him – which he kind of did? As for the pilot, drowning can be the difference between 72 virgins and none. An open ended aviation mystery does maximum damage to MAS and that govt. It looks like defiance to me.

    I see Anwar as heavily influencing his members but not necessarily activating them. A response to a verdict. In the past I could not conceive of such a protest as being useful but the real nature of Anwar sheds a new light. If you look at opposition movements in Muslim countries they are very often more extreme than the govts themselves. Egypt is a case in point: when the smoke cleared who took the microphone in Tahrir Square to address the teeming crowds? It was a senior Muslim brotherhood figure, they then formed a govt which was overthrown by the military. The Arab spring was not a grassroots democratic movement, it was largely engineered by the MB. Anwar is a trojan horse. Al Assad in Syria(a crook) understood this and went the knuckle-duster right away but it got well away from him. If i was the Malaysian govt I would be keen to have Anwar in jail on any old charge really.

  38. @RetiredF4

    I think it could well be the opposition is not involved directly.
    It could be a mostly private motivated act with secundairy political motivations.

    One thing that happened out of this is that this Malaysion government is under international attention for more than two years now. Things got investigated and will get investigated further by big powers.
    Maybe by this a political goal is achieved on itself.

    Maybe the Malaysian government allready knows much more about motives.
    If it was Shah the outcome would have huge political and financial consequenses.
    Just to blame the opposition will not be accepted by China, France, Australia, U.S. and others.
    I assume they will demand every stone turned for the truth.
    And this truth could well be very threatening to this current Malaysian government. Surely if it would become clear they hided critical evidence.

  39. @Rob

    It’s not my intention to work toward a consensus of any kind of scenario.

    I have my own views now, but it’s my intention to finaly learn what happened and maybe contribute just a very tiny bit to this.

    If the plane is found in Kazachstan tomorrow I’ll be as satisfied as if it was found in the SIO today.

  40. @Ge Rijn

    Yes you have a good point. I should not have made the assumption.

    That is not why people participate in a blog. People participate to air their views and take part in the discussion.

    It will finally sink in to my thick skull, one day.

    Thanks

    Rob

  41. Can anyone confirm that the captain was perhaps acquainted not only with Anwar Ibrahim but also with the admiral who called for the resignation of military leaders after the incident?

    Not saying this is relevant.

  42. @David
    Could you quote me the reference where the ATSB asserted that
    the APU would run for 13.5 minutes after (left) engine flameout.?

  43. @Ventus45 I would agree with you that any ‘plan’ by Shah would require a destination and a time of arrival, and I don’t necessarily the SIO and flying to the point of fuel exhaustion providing either. Under the Shah did it for political reasons associated with Anwar,I think it much more probable that the destination was a landing KL, with the intent being to highlight the injustice – and threaten UMNO’s rule.

    @Ge Rejn The matter of the loss of MH370 has perhaps been concealed by the Malaysian government as there was botched intervention that they at least knew about. A botched intervention would likewise yield the same result: the streets would fill with opposition activists.

    UMNO is barely hanging on to power, and heads will roll if they are removed. Finally, Hishammuddin is said to be next in line, and his vulnerability as Transportation/Defence Minister likewise threatens UMNO.

    A suicidal 7 hour flight by a Captain would involve the Stones cranked, the booze cart moved into the flight deck and several large joints burned down for one last party. I don’t believe it was this, either.

  44. @Ge Rijin How about this for Synchronicity: I am rereading Jung’s monograph at this very moment.

    And, yesterday, I was going to mention as I was surfing for updates on MS804 for umpteenth time, that my 7-year old daughter was decorating her notebook and wrote the word ‘BOOM!” in large block letters on the cover. When I had asked her why, she said, “I just wrote down what came into my head.” She knows nothing of my dirty little habit on jeffwise.net.

    BTW, a scarab beetle in lucite is something that travel with. I also made a pilgrimage years ago to that (at least what I imagine) was “the window” and tapped on that very same pane.

Comments are closed.