Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Tuesday... My dog ate my book review? Let's talk news..Flight MH370...

My dog ate my book? 

The wind blew my book review out of my hands? 

OK, OK, I am a slacker! This week has been hectic.  I know, typical story! I really haven't had time to get into a good book, and besides, I have a new one coming out next week.. Honestly, the new Nora Roberts book: Shadow Spell is out on March 25th and I have it Pre-Ordered. Plus, the news lately has been packed full of Hot Topics. 

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Let's talk about Flight MH370, the Malaysian Flight that is MISSING. 

Honestly, this is all over the news. I am finding this story fascinating and tragic all at the same time.  There are even speculations, some so absurd, that are all over social media outlets.

Here are some of the news stories that I have picked through to catch you up, if you have been living under a rock:

YOUR RECAP- in my words:

A flight carrying 239 people disappeared while traveling over the ocean between Malaysia and Vietnam. 
It seems that the Plane's Communication Systems were shut down, including the transponder, which reports location and altitude, at about 1:20 a.m. on 3/8/2014. The plane was picked up by Military Radar as it turned back towards Malaysia and passed above the Peninsular Malaysia before heading into the Strait of Malacca. A tid-bit of information is that around 1:07 a.m. Kualal Lumpur's air traffic control tells the plane's pilot that they are heading off to air traffic control based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.  The pilot responds, "All right.  Good Night."  (from ABC news)

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At 1:22 a.m. the MH370 should have come to the navigational way-point called Igari Point. Before it reached this point, Vietnamese air traffic control noticed they had lost contact with MH370. 

1:30 a.m. is the last moment that the plan was seen by Malaysian radar.

1:38 a.m. Air Traffic Control in Ho Chi Minh City tells Kuala Lumpur air traffic control that flight MH370 was no longer showing a signal. Ho Chi Minh City contacts two other planes to see if they can reach contact with MH370, without answer, just a buzz signal before losing the signal completely. They report no voice activity.
2:15 a.m. the Malaysian military defense radar picks up a plane that is hundreds of miles west of the MH370's last location, but can not identify if this in face the MH370 plane.

The the hours after the last contact was made with the MH370, it has been reported that several "pings" were made to the satellite several times but it is not clear if the pings contained data revealing the planes location.

At 6:32 a.m. Kuala Lumpur's traffic control sent out a broadcast call on all emergency frequencies asking MH370 to call into the tower. They repeated this procedure at 6:51 a.m.

Since then a lot of speculations have been brought to the public's attention.  Was this a suicide by the captain or first officer?  Would that help explain the plane's dissappearance?

There has not been one trace of Flight MH370 to appear since its disappearance on March 8th. This has caused investigators to believe that the plane was diverted thousands of miles off course by someone with deep knowledge of the Boeing 777-200ER and commercial navigation.

google image- speculation that the plane went down due to lightening in Bermuda Triangle.
Suspicions of hijacking or sabotage are where the investigators minds lie since officials say that the Sunday when last radio messages took place from the plane, the "all right, good night" comment was spoken after the system known as "ACARS" was shut down. It is also believed that it was the Co-Pilot who spoke those last words that were recorded on tape. This leads to the fact that something was going on with the Pilot. 

There is a lot of speculation that this is Islamic terrorism, but neither pilot had any ties to the militant groups. It was also disclosed that neither requested to fly with one another on Flight 370. 

There were also two Iranian men on the flight who were traveling on stolen passports, but after further investigations, it was determined that the two were trying to sneak into Europe as economic migrants and had  no terrorist links.

The investigation team thinks that the only way to know what really happened is to know what was going on in the cockpit, and the only way to find that out is to find the plane. 

According to the Satellite data, said plane could be anywhere in either of the two vast corridors that arc through much of Asia: one stretching north from Laos to the Caspian, the other south from west of the Indonesian island of Sumatra into the southern Indian Ocean west of Australia.

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Other Aviation officials in the surrounding areas are cooperating, but report that they knew nothing about the whereabouts of the plane, which is bizarre, considering that if the plane flew through Indian airspace for several hours, no one noticed? 

The Taliban in Afghanistan  reports that they had nothing to do with the missing plane also. (would they really admit it?)

China has been a helping hand in rescue efforts. Two-thirds of the passengers aboard the MH370 were Chinese. 

So what do authorities think? 
Malaysian authorities think that the plane crossed the northeast coast and flew across the Gulf of Thailand, someone on board shut down the communication systems that turned sharply to the west.

Are the Crew behind this?
This is when the investigation started on the pilots, looking into their backgrounds, then evolving through flight and ground staff to see if they could determine a motive. They started looking at the Pilot's homes and found a flight simulator in the Captain's home, that he had built.  So far, it appears that this simulator is a normal one that allows practice on flying and landing in different conditions. This turned investigators back to connections with Militant groups, of which, thus far, none can be found.

The plane has enough fuel to fly for about 30 minutes after the last satellite transmission.  

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This disappearing plane has brought 26 countries to get involved in the search that is currently stretching a crossed much of Asia.  Some believe that the Plane turned south and ran out of fuel over the Indian Ocean.

The newest development states that when the aircraft was diverted, it was a deliberate action and it was not done manually, instead the MH370's path was altered by typing seven or eight keystrokes into a computer that was between the Captain and the Co-Pilot. 

This computer is called the Flight Management System and it directs the plane from point to point based on the plane's flight plan. The only hiccup is that officials are unable to tell if the plane was reprogrammed before or after take off. 


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My Thoughts:

I think that there is a lot of speculation taking place in this case. My gut feeling is that this plane was hijacked. I am unsure if that is because I am hyper sensitive from previous terrorist attacks and the way in which they chose to get their point a crossed. 
I also know that America is not the target, but I think that this was a big enough thing, a strange occurrence that was sure to get our attention..

I also have this funny feeling about the Captain. I think that he might have been smart. Smart enough to keep the Militant influences that he was under, off the radar.

I have heard stories about people in the cockpit, which really only makes this story that much worse.  I do think that whoever is behind this , it being a terrorist mark, knew planes, was really smart and had to be a part of an airline, which makes my speculations about the Captain even more credible.

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I just feel for all the people on the plane. I think they are dead. I actually hope they are, instead of being tortured somewhere. I know that sounds cold, but I think that if I were on the plane (and yes, I do realize a few American's were among the passengers), I would want to go out with the plane, quick, no suffering. I could not handle being tortured. The thought makes my stomach knot.

All in all, I think that this will buckle down air traffic control officials, and if it doesn't, it should. They should be on alert just like a 9-1-1 dispatcher is with the Police Force.  Keep your eyes on your guys at all times and do not lose radio contact, ever!

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OK, I am officially off my soapbox on this topic, but I will post as new developments happen. I am quite fascinated with this story and although I hope for a positive outcome, it has been almost 2 weeks. that is a long time, even if the passengers are lucky enough to be alive, they are living a LOST  rendition and are probably terrified.

~KEL~


 







 




 

 

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