MH370 KUL-PEK : Now confirmed lost in Southern Indian Ocean

[MAN Flyer]

Reports allegedly emerging from the Pentagon (who lets face it, have access to the best kit around...) saying they believe MH370 carried on flying, and sending out 'pings', for a number of hours after it's last known contact, and they are now talking about the Indian Ocean.

I know this is yet another 'rumour' that has appeared recently (it was this time yesterday the Chinese satellite pictures appeared) but if it did head over there for whatever reason it is going to be extremely difficult to find. That is a big and deep place, and not many people have the capability to search large areas of it.

Every morning as soon as I wake up I pop the news apps on in the hope that they will confirm she has been found, but this is truly staggering. Is there only me that is feeling slightly perturbed by this incident ?.

Now the Indians have been roped in to search out of the Nicobar islands...

I presume it's the Air Force as I am not sure the Indian Navy has got many ships they haven't set fire too or damaged in some way or other in the last twelve months.

[milehighj]

Every morning as soon as I wake up I pop the news apps on in the hope that they will confirm she has been found, but this is truly staggering. Is there only me that is feeling slightly perturbed by this incident ?.

Not at all. I feel vexed by this incident. Beyond empathy for the missing and their families, this is increasingly bizarre.

[StarG]

Not at all. I feel vexed by this incident. Beyond empathy for the missing and their families, this is increasingly bizarre.

Same here. So many theories but none (yet) helping for the discovery.
And this is happening to an airline I wouldn't have thought twice about flying on.

[MAN Flyer]

I don't have any qualms about MH, although I can't say my confidence in the authorities is Malaysia has grown much during the last week if I am being honest.

It's just the entire episode. A widebody aircraft weighing hundreds of tons and with 239 people on board has vanished, in 2014. That is off the scale. I am confident 777's are 'safe'. I hope so as I am doing 7000 miles on one tomorrow...

[Handiman]

Feel very very sorry for the family affected by this incident.

Just a thought , is it possible for the cellphone operator to help locate the latest position of aircraft in case some pax forgotten to turn off the phone and when they reach lower altitude it will roam.

[jbflyer]

Latest update.. hijacked

http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysi...erate-pm-najib

[MAN Flyer]

He actually deliberately didn't use the word 'hijack', but did say it was deliberately flown on a route or routes and must have been flown by an experienced pilot. If all this is now factual then it is clearly (if we can even use that word in this crazy saga) pointing at one, or both, of the pilots. I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere but I presume the police have raided their homes, made them a crime scene and taken away all computers etc ?.

[flyguy]

Up to this point, there is still no certainty nor confirmation - even for the bings itself. Its still "maybe", possibly, and now "almost certain". Still they cant confirm for sure if indeed what the satellite detected was indeed from the plane. The only probable was when Najib say their air force primary radar tracked a plane from where MH 370 lost contact and tracked it over its airspace for more than an hour to east of penang - and Najib did say that "it is believed to be MH 370 BUT Cannot confirm for sure. In other words its still a big maybe only. If only their air force would have attempted to contact the plane (not known if it did to interrogate why it is passing the airspace without clearance) and scramble its air force plane(s) to intercept and identify the alleged plane that was to be MH 370 - then we all will know for certain.
The biggest question is why the air force allow it to pass without taking any action although when asked it did say that bec "it was not deemed to be a threat" How would they know it when it was still flying through without authorisation??

[jammed]

why the air force allow it to pass without taking any action although when asked it did say that bec "it was not deemed to be a threat" How would they know it when it was still flying through without authorisation??

i was told by a friend (ie. hearsay) that military SOP will assess whether unknown is hostile and possible intention can be threatening. Workflow chart will lead to something else if 'yes'; if 'no', some controllers may think, why complicate my shift. But as i said, hearsay.

[UMD]

I flew MH a week before this strange incident and despite it was a short SIN - KUL - SIN sector, I noticed a few things that really worried me in terms of safety mindset of the crew in-flight and also how manpower shortage at its homebase in KUL had caused chaos during the check-in process.

On my way to KUL, the crew had allowed a pax across the aisle from my row to rest her head on the tray table during landing and seat A and B next to me to be in a decline position. 3 crew members did walk up and down the aisle to secure the cabin for landing. So, I was surprised to see all 3 of them had missed these safety lapses unless it was becaue they had been indifferent. (I will post the photo later)

On the way back to SIN, I had an incredibly horrible check-in experience at KLIA. Apparently, MH had combined all check-in's for all its International flights at row C in KLIA. Strangely, MH only had 3 counters open to serve all pax plus 1 standy counter (no. 18) that was used to serve pax whose flights had been called to close for check-in. Needless to say, it was very very messy and chaotic. Despite arriving at 7:30 at KUL for my 9:15 flight, I had to finally check in at the standby counter no. 18 at around 8:45. When I inquired to the check-in agent about the chaos, she told me they had been short of manpower in a cynical tone.

Onboard the much delayed fight due to the chaotic check in process, the crew let the guy sitting next to me talking on his mobile phone although the door had been closed without once reminding him to swicth it off. The guy finally switched it off by himself when the plane started to taxi. If not, I would have asked the guy to switch it off myself.

I actually told my colleague who travelled with me that I would stop flying MH for a while because I didn't feel safe flying with them anymore. The same colleague sms-ed me on the morning of March 8th to tell me that MH 370 had gone missing and how scary it was for my concern and fear to actually became a reality.

So, regardless whether MH 370 has been hijacked or has crashed into the ocean, I believe the way MH has been run lately has left a door wide open for any potential bad and sad things to happen. I have waited this long to post this because I didn't want to speculate on MH 370 which could potentially hurt the feeling of the families and friends of those onboard. However, my deicision to not to speculate is no longer relevant with all the bizzare rumours and speculations that have come out from MH and the Malaysian government themselves. Whatever is happening to MH 370, I wish we could all find out the truth soon. Again, my prayer is with the victims.

[milehighj]

Thank you for posting your account, UMD. I had a positive experience on MH last year, and I certainly had it on my list of travel options. Even immediately following the news of the flight's disappearance, I did not change my mind on MH as an acceptable carrier.

However, given what we now can see about the holes and overall disorganisation, plus your account here, I have now changed my mind...

[BerryFusion]

I flew MH a week before this strange incident and despite it was a short SIN - KUL - SIN sector, I noticed a few things that really worried me in terms of safety mindset of the crew in-flight and also how manpower shortage at its homebase in KUL had caused chaos during the check-in process.

On my way to KUL, the crew had allowed a pax across the aisle from my row to rest her head on the tray table during landing and seat A and B next to me to be in a decline position. 3 crew members did walk up and down the aisle to secure the cabin for landing. So, I was surprised to see all 3 of them had missed these safety lapses unless it was becaue they had been indifferent. (I will post the photo later)

Thanks for sharing, UMD. I've only flown with MH twice - from KUL to LGK and return and had a similar experience. From KUL-LGK, the captain had asked the crew to prepare for landing. I was shocked to see that they did not ask the person next to me to turn off/stow away the laptop and the couple on the opposite row had their legs up on the seats in front of them. Just glanced left and right, went up and down the cabin and that was it. The person next to me ended up putting the laptop away 2 minutes before touchdown.
On the flight back, iPads and iPods were used all throughout landing without a remark from the cabin crew.
I took photos of the first flight to evidence this and sent these to MH Customer Feedback. A month later, I get this "thank you, safety is our top priority and we will use this for training purposes".

Although I hear that it is a pretty decent airline, these two experiences left an impression about lax safety standards. So when I travel to KUL, I usually pick SQ or EK.

Hoping for the best...my prayers are with MH370.

[UMD]

Thank you for posting your account, UMD. I had a positive experience on MH last year, and I certainly had it on my list of travel options. Even immediately following the news of the flight's disappearance, I did not change my mind on MH as an acceptable carrier.

However, given what we now can see about the holes and overall disorganisation, plus your account here, I have now changed my mind...

I also never had any qualms at all flying with MH. Despite not being a MH frequent flyer, I did clock 4 sectors with them last year. I was the one who actually changed our SQ flghts to MH because of better scheduling. That's why my colleague was puzzled when I told him about me wanting to avoid MH temporarily after our SIN-KUL-SIN experience.

[StarG]

Thanks for sharing your experiences on MH, UMD.
From my last experience flying MH (when we met up in Paris) I noticed they were more lax in carrying out the safety checks in cabin as well, even though perhaps not as much as onboard your flights.

On a separate issue -- and please pardon me if I am being silly here, is there not yet LO JACK type technology used for aircraft? Or maybe it is not financially sensible to use this to track aircraft?

[milehighj]

On a separate issue -- and please pardon me if I am being silly here, is there not yet LO JACK type technology used for aircraft? Or maybe it is not financially sensible to use this to track aircraft?

Sounds like a big business opportunity going forward.

(when we met up in Paris)

3 years ago! Gotta do that again.