'Contact lost' with Malaysia Airlines plane

How much reserve fuel do they carry?

Malaysia to Beijing is about 6 hours. From my unscientific esitmates using google maps it would be another 3 hours flight to get to where this wreckage is. All depends on cruising speeds as well I guess.

For those in the know does it look about right?
 
koolpc said:
Well, what is stopping the Captain from incapacitating his co pilot etc and stopping anyone from entering the cockpit and then flying to its doom? My gut feeling is that he had something planned after seeing his flight sim setup at his home!
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Why exactly would he need a flight sim for that? Co-pilot goes for a wee and reject his entry back into the flight deck. Turn off transponder and comms and hit the water.

I do not have a flight sim at home and unlike him I'm not trained to pass out other pilots in the sim, but I could manage that.

The only thing I can think of is some chicken **** wanted to die, turned delibrately away from heading towards land, raised the cabin altitude to send himself to sleep and let the aircraft pile in. They probably preferrred that to watching the sea coming up fast.
 
Devlish said:
Why do that then point it at Australia? If you're on a suicide mission why not just suicide? Flying until out of fuel gives the passengers a hella long time to break down that door.
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You're posting as though suicide is a rational act.... Why stand on the ledge, why not just jump right away etc...
 
koolpc said:
Well, what is stopping the Captain from incapacitating his co pilot etc and stopping anyone from entering the cockpit and then flying to its doom? My gut feeling is that he had something planned after seeing his flight sim setup at his home!
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Plenty of train drivers probably have Train Simulator 2014 installed, does this mean they're all going to got at 75mph into dead end platforms?
 
covenantuk said:
How about the most obvious scenario. Pilots change course towards closest airport for any number of reasons. Pilots incapacitated and plane flew on that heading until out of fuel.
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Except plane changed course to closest airport, changed course after he flew over closest airport, changed course again and again following standard waypoints (all tracked on radar) then after leaving radar coverage changed course once more (significantly) towards an area of the sea that had no land... There may have also been one more course change in there depending on how accurate the the inmarsat line actually is...

So either we ignore the radar data or we have to wonder why the course was changed multiple times and the final course was to a location no land would have been.
 
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Pilots flying til out of fuel is the 3rd most common form of pilot suicide however why bother disabling comms and all other transponders and tracking - its not like they could have been used to stopped the pilot carrying it out once he had locked himself on the flight deck.
 
koolpc said:
Well, what is stopping the Captain from incapacitating his co pilot etc and stopping anyone from entering the cockpit and then flying to its doom? My gut feeling is that he had something planned after seeing his flight sim setup at his home!
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Comfortably paid pilot in having sophisticated Flight Sim setup at home shocker. Plenty of pilots apparently use Flight Sim. Plenty of non-pilots have more complex rigs.


Rroff said:
Pilots flying til out of fuel is the 3rd most common form of pilot suicide
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How many forms of pilot suicide are there?
 
Rroff said:
Pilots flying til out of fuel is the 3rd most common form of pilot suicide however why bother disabling comms and all other transponders and tracking - its not like they could have been used to stopped the pilot carrying it out once he had locked himself on the flight deck.
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To try and make it look like an accident so the insurance pays out to his family. They won't payout for suicide.
 
Django x2 said:
If it's not MH370, I would be intrigued to know what was floating off the coast of AUS that exceeds 24m in length...
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Well there's still millions of tons of debris from the Japanese tsunami floating the worlds oceans, entire intact houses have been spotted at sea, so if its not plane debris, it could be pretty much anything.
 
VoG said:
Well there's still millions of tons of debris from the Japanese tsunami floating the worlds oceans, entire intact houses have been spotted at sea, so if its not plane debris, it could be pretty much anything.
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Very true. Lots of stuff falls off transportation vessels in heavy seas too. Looking at the estimated arc though, there is at least some degree of likelihood this might be a section of the missing plane.
 
Maybe the pilot was an environmentalist at heart and did not want to pollute the seas with tons of fuel.
 
Drukk said:
What an absolute load of rubbish that article is!
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Possibly but it is reporting what a credible source has said and comes on the back of other media reports revealing an exploit (Planesploit) that was presented at a security conference (Hack in the Box) back in April 2013. Of course the airlines refuted the possibility as it hadn't been proven on a real aircraft, it was demonstrated on a simulator. Therefore it may not be as far fetched as it may seem.
 
The pic was taken on the 16th according to the date stamp but not sure why it's taken 4 days to surface? Hopefully those scrambling to get to the spotted debris will compensate for the ocean drift as it may well be another wild goose chase like the previous sighting of things in the sea.

There is a Norwegian ship (car carrier) passing through the area although it is turning night time there.
 
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