That would explain a lot as to why no trace has been found to the east of Malaysia. It does then also mean a missive search area to the west.

The news this morning adds to the confusion, tracking systems deliberately turned off, would have required in depth knowledge of these systems.

It's all getting very strange. It now, sort of, points towards a hijack/planenap, but then where are the demands/ransom demand if it was?

If we head down conspiracy lane, I'd think you'd have to ask who or what was aboard. Maybe there are demands. Doesn't mean the general public would necessarily know.

It would make a rather large dirty nuclear bomb.

Where could you land a 777 where nobody with a phone could see it? I still fear it has ended badly, but it is certainly intriguing.

Given the shambolic nature of the way it's been handled, I doubt tptb out there could keep anything a secret for long.

It's been stolen and we'll see what he'll a 777 can create shortly.
Not that I'm a pessimist but it all feels wrong.

According to BBC news the authorities are now talking to any country that the plane may have flown over...



If you don't know if your plane is France or Australia then you're pretty f***ed.

Also interesting that they're talking to all of the -stans, but no mention of Russia.

Perhaps someone's come up with a neat way of acquiring planes for an internal service, without all that tedious handing over several hundred million quid a time?

Do these planes come complete with crew and passengers?

I find the while thing scary as hell! The BBC news this evening showed how easy it was for even a novice to switch things off and redirect the plane.

Thinking long and hard, it can only be theft. But to what end?

There can't be a black market for passenger planes of that size, you can't sell a plane with no history and how do you maintain something like that? Then how do you use it without drawing attention?

The news article I have just seen has stated that the new search area Is equal to 10% of the worlds surface!

So It's gone from looking for a needle in a hay stack, to looking for a needle in several massive fields full of hay stacks!

Incredible, I stupidly thought that every move anyone made was tracked, all calls listened to and yet 270 odd people can disappear and the people who I thought would know haven't got a clue!

There's probably a fly-by-night character somewhere.

Not sure where atm though....

Perhaps the plane is not what any thief was after.

The plane had 227 passengers aboard but the capacity is 280ish. Obviously not all flights are always full but there's 50 people's worth of weight not on board.

If the average person weighs 70kg and has 20kg of baggage allowance that's around 4.5 tonnes of cargo which could have been aboard.

What's 4.5 tonne of gold worth?

There's a sane discussion of that very point on El Reg... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/18/mh370_airliner_mystery_the_iel_regi_pubdinnerparty_guide/

Interesting. I heard it from a guy who works at MIRA and is a bit of an anorak when it comes to looking for information in his spare time.

Interestingly, 4.5 ton of gold is worth over $200million. Or, enough to pay off everyone on board handsomely or to buy enough bullets for the ones who might talk.

I'm not normally one for conspiracy theories, but this seems to be the one which has been backed up with at least some degree of reasoning.

Better if they were shipping cash. Dollars you can spend anywhere, but getting change for an ingot... you have to know the right people and/or have a damn good story about your possession of said ingot.

Dear Mr Barnacle,

It is most glorious to make your acquaintance and to have the god given opportunity to do business with you.

My name is crown prince Klonsarc of Myanmar and I have in my possession 4,500 1kg bars of gold valued at $180,000,000 (one-hundred and eighty million US dollars).

Unfortunately, because of export restrictions I cannot get them out of the country, so I am looking for honest and trustworthy people, like your good self, who have a UK or US bank account to...

An interesting article that nicely sums up what is known so far, without getting to lost down conspiracy lane.

Something that interests me though, they know where and when MH370 was last tracked on Malaysian Military radar, and presumably its approximate altitude and heading.
They also have the time of the last Inmarsat ‘ping’ somewhere on the massive northern or southern hemisphere arcs that have been shown. But they must also have at least 5-6 other hourly ‘pings’ that can surly be pinned down to similar arcs, which would allow further calculations on flight path and approx. final location at the last ‘ping’.
They must know the distance between these arcs so surly they would be able to work out (with the timings) if the aircraft was flying almost along the arcs or away from or towards the point on the earth the satellite is above. This would surly rule out big chunks of the final arcs that have been published.
Also it has been stated that the aircraft could have flown in any direction for up to an hour after its last 'ping'.

Your last point is the key. They have an hours flight from the last ping in any direction. Now I assume that they would prioritise along the flight assumed by previous pings. Even 1/2 an hour at 500mph plus is 250mile radius along the two arcs.

More information is known than is being disclosed, and that is normal practice.

Who had an iPhone on the flight? Find my iPhone! Nothing more to add

One report I just read suggested that the plane was flying high (46,000ft) and then very low, possible explanation is the pilot trying to shake potential hyjackers about abit...not sure they'll ever find out.

I like this take......

here

Roy

I sore this theory earlier today and its thoroughly plausible.

This was already a shambles but it's now turned into a complete farce...It now appears that the aircraft reached 45,000ft shortly after take off, apparently the oxygen would have only lasted 12 minutes and the pilot (who ever that was) stayed at that height for 25 minutes...

My first question would be why wasn't this highlighted anywhere? Surely it would be easy for a system to kick off various alarms if a aircraft went either too high or low? Send a couple of jets up to find out whats going on?

Where did you get this info. From previous reports it look like someone made some weypoint changes as the aircraft passed over Malaysia, then it seems to have turned south and headed into doom. I would think, and hope, all souls were dead long before the fuel ran out and plunged into the sea.

There's your problem, you're using the Express as a news source.

I knew you would kick off about this, all we need is Jim to dive in now and we'll have both of you in the net