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The Malaysia Airlines flight missing with 239 on board may have turned around just before it vanished from radar screens, the country's air force chief said on Sunday as the government said it had contacted counter-terrorism agencies around the world.

The airline warned families to prepare for the worst as they endured a second day without news. The search of waters between Malaysia and Vietnam for any trace of flight MH370 has widened.

At least two people on the plane were travelling together on stolen passports, fuelling concerns about the Boeing-777's abrupt disappearance in the early hours of Saturday. However, experts said there were many possible reasons for why it vanished and for people to travel on false documents.
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AUSTIN, Texas -- Austin-based company Freescale Semiconductor has issued a statement on their website confirming 20 passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, that vanished one hours after takeoff, worked at the company.

Twelve are from Malaysia and eight are from China.

According to a tweet by the company, the entire Freescale Semiconductor community is deeply saddened by this news.

The company is continuing to monitor the situation and will provide more information as it becomes available.

“At present, we are solely focused on our employees and their families,” said Gregg Lowe, president and CEO, Freescale. “Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this tragic event.”

Freescale has assembled counselors and other professionals through Freescale’s Employee Assistance Program, with around-the-clock support for those impacted by this tragedy.

Freescale is an American company that produces and designs embedded hardware. The company was previously known as Motorola.

They have now discovered that two stolen passports were used to board the aircraft, and they are investigating foul play. They believe the plane may have blown up at 35,000 feet, which would scatter debris over a very wide area and make it much more difficult to find identifiable pieces.

baldeagle wrote:They have now discovered that two stolen passports were used to board the aircraft, and they are investigating foul play.

Apparently it might not just be the two that have already been publicized.
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When it was just two, well, that's less than 1% of the passengers. I think it's plausible, without actually looking up any stats, that maybe there just happened to be two drug mules/fugitives/whatever on the same flight. But if we're talking three or more, that scenario starts seeming less and less plausible. At least in my uneducated opinion.

It is surprising to me with all of the technology of GPS, communications, radar, satellite tracking, etc that an airliner can vanish.

The world and the oceans are a big place.

WildBill wrote:It is surprising to me with all of the technology of GPS, communications, radar, satellite tracking, etc that an airliner can vanish.

The world and the oceans are a big place.

Indeed, it is.

Your comment reminds me of a tee shirt I observed several years ago while doing a job in Ft. Bragg, NC: home of the 82nd Airborne and SOF. The shirt stated, "The earth is covered with 75% water, the rest is DROP ZONE".
ATW!

Oldgringo wrote:

WildBill wrote:It is surprising to me with all of the technology of GPS, communications, radar, satellite tracking, etc that an airliner can vanish.

The world and the oceans are a big place.

Indeed, it is.

Your comment reminds me of a tee shirt I observed several years ago while doing a job in Ft. Bragg, NC: home of the 82nd Airborne and SOF. The shirt stated, "The earth is covered with 75% water, the rest is DROP ZONE".
ATW!

Not to be too humorous, but that reminds me of a sign that my high school biology teacher had in his office:

It stated, "The Earth is Covered With 75% Water, therefore 75% Of My Time Should Be Spent Fishing."

Fighter pilot saying:

"There are 2 types of aircraft: Fighters and targets." :-)

SIA

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:Fighter pilot saying:

"There are 2 types of aircraft: Fighters and targets." :-)

Submariner saying:

"There are 2 types of ships: Submarines and targets."

As an aircraft mechanic, it bothers me a lot that this plane has vanished like that. The 777 is a great aircraft. Its rated to fly quite a distance away from land on only one engine if one went out (and those engines have a very high mean time between failure), most of the systems that control things are redundant (meaning they have backups that automatically kick in), and even if it went down, there is a beacon that should be going off. Also, its very rare that something happens to an aircraft during cruise; most problems are on take-off or landing. It would have to be catastrophic indeed for this situation to have occurred. My hopes and prayers go out for the folks on that aircraft, and their friends and family.

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:Fighter pilot saying:

"There are 2 types of aircraft: Fighters and targets." :-)

SIA

Where have you been as of late? Busy life?

K.Mooneyham wrote:As an aircraft mechanic, it bothers me a lot that this plane has vanished like that. The 777 is a great aircraft. Its rated to fly quite a distance away from land on only one engine if one went out (and those engines have a very high mean time between failure), most of the systems that control things are redundant (meaning they have backups that automatically kick in), and even if it went down, there is a beacon that should be going off. Also, its very rare that something happens to an aircraft during cruise; most problems are on take-off or landing. It would have to be catastrophic indeed for this situation to have occurred. My hopes and prayers go out for the folks on that aircraft, and their friends and family.

It was abducted by aliens. This is my best theory till date.

K.Mooneyham wrote:As an aircraft mechanic, it bothers me a lot that this plane has vanished like that. The 777 is a great aircraft. Its rated to fly quite a distance away from land on only one engine if one went out (and those engines have a very high mean time between failure), most of the systems that control things are redundant (meaning they have backups that automatically kick in), and even if it went down, there is a beacon that should be going off. Also, its very rare that something happens to an aircraft during cruise; most problems are on take-off or landing. It would have to be catastrophic indeed for this situation to have occurred. My hopes and prayers go out for the folks on that aircraft, and their friends and family.

Definitely had to have a been a catastrophic event. I feed ADS-B received signals to the a couple of the Internet flight tracking services. One of the services allows you to go and play back previous flight data. I replayed the flight and it just suddenly disappears from the map at 35,000' over the water. Just watching that icon go away gave me a queasy feeling in my stomach. No distress call, no further flight data, radar echoes, etc tell me it more than likely disintegrated in flight at cruise. No ELT beacon or no black box ping could be due to it being destroyed or possibly the depth of the ocean at the point of impact. But no debris field or no fuel slicks are just totally unusual and says there may not have been much debris of any size hitting the ocean.

My guess is it blew up for some reason. Could have been terrorism, but could also have been a cargo issue. Hopefully the cargo manifest will shed light on if there was anything declared that could have contributed to a total loss of the aircraft in flight.

In the back of my mind, I keep wondering if it was shot with a missile and due to the amount of fuel it carries, it just blew into small pieces. Tragic indeed.

mojo84 wrote:In the back of my mind, I keep wondering if it was shot with a missile and due to the amount of fuel it carries, it just blew into small pieces. Tragic indeed.

I would think (possibly incorrectly) that a missile fired to 35,000 feet would have shown up on somebody's radar.

RoyGBiv wrote:

mojo84 wrote:In the back of my mind, I keep wondering if it was shot with a missile and due to the amount of fuel it carries, it just blew into small pieces. Tragic indeed.

I would think (possibly incorrectly) that a missile fired to 35,000 feet would have shown up on somebody's radar.

Me too. Laser?