Missing MH370 likely to have disintegrated mid-flight: experts

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-03-09

A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 commercial jet. (Photo/Xinhua)

The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which lost contact with aviation authorities en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur at 1:20am on Saturday morning, is most likely due to a sudden breakup of the plane mid-flight, according to Chinese experts.

An air search and rescue mission continues in the South China Sea where the Boeing 777 — carrying 239 passengers, including 154 Chinese nationals and one Taiwanese national — is likely to have crashed. The team is on a race against time to search for the plane's black box, which records flight data and cockpit voice transmissions, though at the time of writing the box's signals have yet to be detected.

On Sunday morning, Hugh Dunleavy, commercial director at Malaysia Airlines, suggested the reason why the black box — which can ordinarily radiate signals for 200km-300km — has not yet been found may be due to the seriousness of the plane's disintegration.

Song Wenbin, an aviation expert at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, told Chinese-language Beijing Times that it is unlikely that the disappearance of flight MH370 was caused by weather. The plane lost contact around 40 minutes after departure, which means it would have likely exceeded an altitude of 10,000 meters, where influences of the weather become minimal, Song said.

Ma Wei, a lecturer at the same university, said it is unusual for a plane's signal to be completely severed. Even if flight MH370 experienced an engine problem that affected its communication system, there are sufficient backups in place to keep the system up and running, Wei said. It is also improbable that the communication system was shut down manually as a plane has more than a single communication system and has other ways of notifying air traffic control, he added.

A hijacking has been considered another possibility, though Chinese air force test pilot Xu Yongling said it is unlikely for this to have occurred without anyone on board making contact with the land before the plane crashed. Cockpits of modern commercial flights have excellent safety features, Xu said, adding that pilots can activate the SOS system without leaving their seats.

Zhou Jisheng, an aircraft designer at Guangdong Changsheng Aircraft Design Co, told the Beijing Times that the most likely possiblity is that the plane experienced a sudden breakup which did not allow the plane's crew sufficient time to notify aviation authorities.

Song concurs with Zhou's assessment but said that if this were the case, the debris would be scattered across a large area and should have been easily spotted by rescue teams. Given that the plane has not yet been spotted, it is also possible that the entire plane, or at least most of it, crashed into the sea at the same time, he said.

Zhou said there are two possibilities if the plane did disintegrate mid-air. The first is some kind of catastrophic structural failure stemming from corrosion and wear and tear over time or the plane's pressurization and depressurization system. The other is an explosion caused by a bomb or similar device.

The Beijing-based Economic Observer reported, citing aviation experts, that the probability that flight MH370 was brought down by a terrorist attack or bomb is higher than that of mechanical failure. If there was some kind of mechanical failure which caused the plane to drop from the sky, it would still take at least six to seven minutes, providing crew plenty of time to make contact with ground control, the paper said.

Malaysia's acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein looks 

on a map of a search corridor during a press conference at a hotel

near the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in Sepang, Malaysia,

Monday, March 17, 2014. Twenty-six countries are involved in the

massive international search for the Malaysia Airlines jetliner that

disappeared on March 8 with 239 people aboard. (AP Photo/

Vincent Thian)

Related Articles:

MH370: Malaysian police drag away relatives as missing flight anger boils
Missing jet reveals uncomfortable Malaysian truths

Commentary: The fate of 239 lives tolerates no dereliction or selfishness

Missing flight MH370 lost in southern Indian Ocean, says Malaysian PM - New

Batteries aboard MH370 could have caused fire

MH370: Chinese satellite spots potential debris

'Time of the essence' in hunt for MH370

Indonesian Bureaucracy Grounded MH370 Search Flights, Military Pledges ‘Fullest Support’

Maldives island residents report sighting of 'low flying jet'

MH370: missing plane's co-pilot made last verbal communication, officials say
MH370 could have flown 'as low as 5,000ft to avoid radar'
Plane's message sent 'after communications disabled'
Malaysian PM: Diversion of missing airliner was a 'deliberate act'

Finding MH370 not impossible but hugely complex, say experts

Malaysia Airlines mystery: US issued warnings over Boeing 777 'weak spot'
Iran offers help with probe into missing Malaysian airliner

Missing flight MH370 could ease tensions in South China Sea: Global Times
Thai police target 'passport ring' in vanished flight probe

Indonesia Navy Joins Search for MH370

Beijing expresses concern over missing Malaysian flight

Archangel Michael: Spring Means the Time of Rebirth and Awakening – The Golden Age of Gaia, Steve Beckow, March 22, 2014 - New

....SB: That’s very good, Lord. Thank you. I’m going to move quickly to Flight 370, and then hopefully a short talk on global citizenry.

Ashira said that Flight 370 had exploded, but he didn’t say what the cause of the explosion was. Others have said that a secret naval weapon was used to cause it to disintegrate. And recently a prominent channel said the plane was suffering from hydraulic failure, was in an uncontrolled state, at risk of imminent destruction; whisked out of the air in mid-flight, was taken aboard an enormous spaceship from Sirius claimed to be part of the Federation fleet under the Ashtar Command whose full report is available from a certain website.

Now, Ashira said they took a few people up who still wanted to remain in form, but the rest — they passed on. What is the truth, Lord?

AAM: This is not an action — let us put it this way — this is not an action that your star brothers and sisters have been deeply involved in. This is an action of what we would refer to, or Gabrielle would refer to, as of violence, of sabotage, of subterfuge. And it has continued.

So there are lies upon lies upon lies. And what is occurring … this is a terrible situation. And it is painful to so many. But what it is also doing for humanity, it is bringing up what we would call shared compassion and grief. Because if you were to look at the grief and the confusion and the compassion component of what is being felt and emanating from the hearts of the collective, individuals all over the planet, it is out of alignment with the situation even including those who have been on the plane and who have suffered and the families that are left suffering the loss of their loved ones.

So it has amplified and shown the global community, in a time when there has been much strife and conflict on the ground, the other side of the scale, where you are seeing the global community coming together in compassion and sending healing for many. It is also bringing together the global community in saying, “We require, we demand truth.” Because there have been such significant untruths, every step of the way. And now what is occurring, among what you think are responsible agencies of many countries, is that they are looking for scapegoats. They are looking for situations to hang this on.

The truth will come out, but the function of this act of violence has been hijacked in many ways not by your star brothers and sisters but by the Company of Heaven to teach several very important, critical, timely lessons. The ship has not been taken on board a mothership elsewhere. That is false hope.

SB: Where is the ship, Lord? Is it blown to smithereens, or is it at the bottom of the ocean?

AAM: For all intents and purposes, it is not intact. We cannot give you the totality because that would be breaking our agreement.

SB: And then of course you couldn’t tell us what nation did it, either?

AAM: It is not so much a nation as individuals acting independently.

SB: All right. I’m not sure whether I should go further in trying to get more details, or…. whether….

AAM: Please do not.....

Message from Matthew and Ashtar via Suzy Ward: March 20, 2014 – Missing Malaysian Airlines Plane

Ashira on Malaysian Flight 370 and the Ukraine - The Golden Age of Gaia, Steve Beckow, March 11, 2014

On Heavenly Blessings today, Suzi Maresca asked Ashira, Commander of the Neptune, what caused the loss of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 and Ashira replied:

 “It was not interdimensional slippage and they were not taken by us. So let us be very clear. We would not do that. Not at this point because from our perspective that would be seen as an act of war or an act of terrorism. We would not break that many hearts.

“So what happened was that there was an explosion and the ship went down. Could we have saved it? There are certain things that we are not permitted to interfere with. But let us also …. now this is what we can say … on that ship [everyone?] was taken care of. …

“There were many upon that ship who as a collective had agreed to leave together … and this is something that often happens … there is a group soul, whether you believe it or not. Now those who did not want to pass from their form were beamed up.”

"THE THREE WINDS" – Feb 23-24, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Humanity, Home - other side of the veil, Wind of Birth - Birth, Wind of Existence - Life, Wind of Transition - Death) - (Text version)