Boeing 777 Disappears Near Vietnam

[bush_cheney2004]

Military radar determined the contact not to be a threat:

"The aircraft was categorized as friendly by the radar operator and therefore no further action was taken at the time"

[WestCoastRunner]

Military radar determined the contact not to be a threat:

"The aircraft was categorized as friendly by the radar operator and therefore no further action was taken at the time"

So I suppose that if the Malaysian government had let the military know of a rogue aircraft, they have may determined differently.

[bush_cheney2004]

So I suppose that if the Malaysian government had let the military know of a rogue aircraft, they have may determined differently.

Maybe....civil and commercial aviation can drive military air defense operators nuts, and that corridor is very well traveled. Range, course, speed, and altitude (if determined) give the military some idea of what the contact is and is not. A B777 has a huge radar cross section signature...very hard to hide from a competent air search radar and crew unless out of range or flying very low.

[WestCoastRunner]

A B777 has a huge radar cross section signature...very hard to hide from a competent air search radar and crew unless out of range or flying very low.

Exactly, was the Malaysian govt sleeping at the wheel.

[bush_cheney2004]

Exactly, was the Malaysian govt sleeping at the wheel.

No....they say the contact was identified, tracked, and dismissed as not a military threat. Only after a report of the missing airliner was a "search" and radar analysis undertaken.

[WestCoastRunner]

No....they say the contact was identified, tracked, and dismissed as not a military threat. Only after a report of the missing airliner was a "search" and radar analysis undertaken.

I should have said ' the malaysian airline/airport' should have reported a rogue aircraft.

[bush_cheney2004]

After the fact, this is the recommendation now coming out of Malaysia for the UN....continuous tracking and reporting. ATC hand-offs is the current standard but this can make it very difficult to locate a missing flight quickly, particularly international flights over water. Security and the costs to locate and salvage these aircraft may give the idea(s) some traction vs. the expense of implementation.

[On Guard for Thee]

Exactly, was the Malaysian govt sleeping at the wheel.

After the turn to the left, that a/c wasn't identified, because the xponder went offline, for whatever reason. Next the aircraft was tracked, by military radar but only as a primary target. Now many places I've been in the world, military and civilian radar operations are not well co-ordinated. Here's an interesting cultural point that seems to come out of this: the military guy who saw the primary target was inexperienced, and perhaps didn't want to wake up his/her CO at such an early hour, and that helped them to determine it was not a threat, which of course it wasn't. If you remember back to the KAL flight many years ago that was shot down by a Russian fighter over Russian airspace, a very similar thing happenned culturally. In this case a fighter was sent up but noone up the chain of command could be reached for a decision, so that fighter pilot had to make a decision before the 747 departed the airspace, although he didn't know it was a commercial flight, and the uS had been playing "cat and mouse" games with a large military a/c not too long prior. So I guess it's a kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario.

[Shady]

It's time to end the search before hundreds of more millions of dollars of tax payer money is spent. The plane obviously crashed somewhere in the ocean. Perhaps at some point in the future there will be an easier way to find it. Until then, I say enough is enough. Not everything can be wrapped up like a good book. I'm sorry for the families' losses, but this isn't the first and only time a crash hasn't been found. It's ridiculous to keep having people risk their lives and for governments to keep spending millions if dollars.

[guyser]

Their money to spend. Let them There are plenty of reasons to keep trying find it

The mfr'er of the plane, components mfr'ers, 283 families, restoring confidence in Malyasian Airlines all plenty good reasons to keep trying.

[Shady]

Their money to spend. Let them There are plenty of reasons to keep trying find it

The mfr'er of the plane, components mfr'ers, 283 families, restoring confidence in Malyasian Airlines all plenty good reasons to keep trying.

None of those are very good reasons for the United States, Australia etc to keep spending tax money on a missing plane. Enough is enough.

[guyser]

None of those are very good reasons for the United States, Australia etc to keep spending tax money on a missing plane. Enough is enough.

Who built the plane?

Aus is doing good service for Chinese nationals and the Malaysian govt and airline.

All very good reasons, it aint your fight.

[On Guard for Thee]

Who built the plane?

Aus is doing good service for Chinese nationals and the Malaysian govt and airline.

All very good reasons, it aint your fight.

Yep, Boeing for one won't want this question mark associated with one of their most popular products. I've heard some of the reportage on this report the Malay government released just a couple of days ago and they have certainly lost some credibility. Especially the military as the report indicates that it was military radar that tracked a primary radar target going over the peninsula (which is asumed to have been 370) after it made it's turnback and did nothing about it. All the while Ho Chi Min radar was was asking KL where their plane was as it should have been showing up on their screen.

[jbg]

The subtext here is that a lot of the passengers were ethnic Chinese. They are the despised work-horses of the Malaysian economy. The majority in that country has no work ethic. Similar to Indonesia the Chinese do the work and are more affluent. Not being the majority religion they are hated.

The pilot may have been happy to see this happen even at cost to his own life.

[WestCoastRunner]

Enough is enough.

Who determines that enough is enough? You? Would you feel safe boarding a triple 7 or flying into or out of Malaysia. The investigation into the Air France flight that disappeared took 2 years. After each air crash has been investigated, safety measures have been implemented from lessons learned. Such will likely be the case if they ever find the black box in the Malaysia flight. Indeed, safety measures have already been implemented in Malaysia because of this crash.

[Smallc]

Sometimes money is no object. This is one of those times.

[guyser]

The pilot may have been happy to see this happen even at cost to his own life.

[WWWTT]

Who built the plane?

Aus is doing good service for Chinese nationals and the Malaysian govt and airline.

All very good reasons, it aint your fight.

Australia and Malaysia are very reliant on tourists arriving by plane.

They have great interest in improving their searching abilities.

I'm disappointed that Canada wasn't involved in this search.

WWWTT

[WWWTT]

The subtext here is that a lot of the passengers were ethnic Chinese. They are the despised work-horses of the Malaysian economy. The majority in that country has no work ethic. Similar to Indonesia the Chinese do the work and are more affluent. Not being the majority religion they are hated.

The pilot may have been happy to see this happen even at cost to his own life.

This comment is out of context to this thread?!?!?!?! Or I should say the first part of your comment.

As for the second part, I'm sure that an airline pilot has a very attractive lifestyle and salary. Your comment does not make any sense????

WWWTT

[On Guard for Thee]

This comment is out of context to this thread?!?!?!?! Or I should say the first part of your comment.

As for the second part, I'm sure that an airline pilot has a very attractive lifestyle and salary. Your comment does not make any sense????

WWWTT

Most pilot's I know love to fly, including me. But not into the ocean. Well unless you are on floats and landing at the fish camp.

[Rue]

Australia and Malaysia are very reliant on tourists arriving by plane.

They have great interest in improving their searching abilities.

I'm disappointed that Canada wasn't involved in this search.

WWWTT

With what?

Our navy is tiny and depleted and the little resources our navy has-has been involved in anti piracy work and even then one of those ships was re-routed to Eastern Europe.

Our navy is incapable of assisting. We have no search and rescue aircraft that are available for use. We don't even have enough for Canada. As it is we transport our soldiers in American Air Force planes and watch our fisheries be depleted and can't do a damn thing and patrol our vast North with Inuits in kayaks who we call Rangers. They throw seal blubber at invaders.

[Smallc]

The navy is actually pretty large compared to most in terms of surface combatants, but there are none available due to the refit of the Halifax Class.

[overthere]

The subtext here is that a lot of the passengers were ethnic Chinese. They are the despised work-horses of the Malaysian economy. The majority in that country has no work ethic. Similar to Indonesia the Chinese do the work and are more affluent. Not being the majority religion they are hated.

The pilot may have been happy to see this happen even at cost to his own life.

That makes no sense. If the pilot was intent on killing Chinese people, he'd have flown the aircraft into central Beijing, not the middle of the ocean.

Australia and Malaysia are very reliant on tourists arriving by plane.

They have great interest in improving their searching abilities.

I'm disappointed that Canada wasn't involved in this search.

WWWTT

Australia is far from reliant on tourists. Their economy is based on resources and they do very well indeed off that sector. Traveling to Australia is expensive and travelling there is really expensive.

It makes little sense to have Canada fly ponderous search and rescue aircraft all the way to Western Australia to look for an ill defined target. Search and rescue is done with low and slow planes, and the professionals looking now don't even have any real ideas on where to look. What would we add to that?

Edited May 7, 2014 by overthere

[guyser]

That makes no sense. If the pilot was intent on killing Chinese people, he'd have flown the aircraft into central Beijing, not the middle of the ocean.

Sounds right to me.

Traveling to Australia is expensive and travelling there is really expensive.

Found it to be quite the opposite. Cheaper to fly in Aus than it is in Canada.

[WWWTT]

Australia is far from reliant on tourists. Their economy is based on resources and they do very well indeed off that sector. Traveling to Australia is expensive and travelling there is really expensive.

It makes little sense to have Canada fly ponderous search and rescue aircraft all the way to Western Australia to look for an ill defined target. Search and rescue is done with low and slow planes, and the professionals looking now don't even have any real ideas on where to look. What would we add to that?

Sounds like you never travelled to China, Thailand or east Asia.

Many Australians there travelling about.

In fact the Australians are so dependant on travel, that there national airline Qantas has an extremely high safety record, but not as good as what some may think.

Australia still has a great interest in the search!

WWWTT