Sad news coming out of south China...

[Can't Know]

This would be the worst incident involving the 777. Sad, just awful.

Malaysia Airlines plane crashes in South China Sea with 239 people aboard: report | Reuters

The "report" is not yet confirmed, but the aircraft disappeared while over the South China Sea and has not been heard of since before that.

[Skid Row Joe]

I hope this isn't another airline pilot committing suicide, as to the cause of the crash.

[barry12345]

Almost always difficult when the crew reports nothing about what is happening. It is difficult over deep water to resolve those particular ones.

I have often wondered who pays for the costly recovery efforts. They must get into the mega million dollar range sometimes. There is too much chance that the cause may be something they can prevent in the future to let them go unresolved. Efforts at body recovery are a big issue.

I can easily see pilots in a really bad situation not bothering to attempt to communicate the difficulty. Some problems are just too severe to pay any attention to anything else. The mechanics that have done the maintenance probably get a good dose of auditing and suspicion.

[rscurtis]

I've wondered why modern airliners aren't equipped with live video feeds that are recorded on the ground. It would be a lot easier than searching for flight recorders, which may not provide all the answers even if they're found.

[tjts1]

Because the live video feed will be lost the moment the aircraft has an electrical failure or changes its orientation from straight and level. That type of bandwidth requires a strong connection to a satellite above. Most wide body Airbus and a few Boeing aircraft transmit vital data including failures in real time to the manufacturer. This was used in the cash investigation of Air France 447.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447#Automated_messages

[Air&Road]

Originally Posted by rscurtis

I've wondered why modern airliners aren't equipped with live video feeds that are recorded on the ground. It would be a lot easier than searching for flight recorders, which may not provide all the answers even if they're found.

I would expect that the type of tracking done on flightAware.com would give them a pretty close indication as to the exact location. FlightAware shows any aircraft in the sky that has a flight plan and a transponder, which all commercial flights have.

You would think if it were terrorist activity they would be spouting off and taking credit. It's difficult to imagine any situation beyond something fast like an explosion. Would have resulted in a May Day call on some tower or flight watch recording somewhere.

[DeliveryValve]

A Boeing 777 does not come down while at the cruise stage of the flight. That airplane has had a long record of being one of the safest airliners out there.

There is speculation of possible terrorism.

Terrorism not ruled out in disappearance of Malaysia Airlines jet - latimes.com

Whatever the case, I hope they find survivors, but it doesn't look good.


.

[Can't Know]

All there is at this point is speculation.

Radar coverage apparently isn't great over the water in that region, and proper tracking requires a transponder. Under normal circumstances they should have been on autopilot, so it's something more than a rapid loss of cabin pressure or it would have just continued in flight.

It appears there were a couple of passengers flying with stolen passports so terrorism remains a possibility, as does some manner of catastrophic incident or, as commented, pilot suicide.

It's odd that they haven't picked up the signal, however, that is supposed to automatically trigger.

I hope the water isn't very deep there; it would be good to have some answers.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families and their loved ones.

Today marks the first time I've flown the day after an air disaster. I expect the atmosphere in the airports will be somewhat subdued.

Just awful.

[Skid Row Joe]

Originally Posted by DeliveryValve

A Boeing 777 does not come down while at the cruise stage of the flight. That airplane has had a long record of being one of the safest airliners out there.

There is speculation of possible terrorism.

Terrorism not ruled out in disappearance of Malaysia Airlines jet - latimes.com

Whatever the case, I hope they find survivors, but it doesn't look good.


.

Not so.

ANY aircraft will come down at any stage of flight for the right reason or converging set of circumstances.

The fact that the flight was lost in the dead of night, adds more possibilities to the mix.

In the early 1990s an otherwise perfectly functioning Boeing 757 was lost at sea in the dead of night because of one pito tube being plugged by a mud dauber nest built in one of the two pito tubes that measure air speed of the craft. The conflicting on-board electronic instruments malfunctioning that followed, led the captain to believe his plane was in an overspeed situation, causing him to stall the craft into the sea. It was a very unfortunate incident, that may have been rectified if the incident had happened in the light of day, where the captain would have realized he was in a stall, not diving in an overspeed situation.

[kerry]

Are you sure you're not thinking of the Air France Airbus A330 crash?

[ramonajim]

Mikael Robertsson, cofounder of FlightRadar24, which tracks about 120,000 flights per day with 3,000 receivers around the world, said the last transmission it recorded from the flight was at 35,000 feet. While it’s possible the plane veered into an area too far away from receivers to track it, he said that was unlikely.

“In this case, we have quite good coverage,” he said. “We had a very good stable signal and it just disappeared …. I don’t want to speculate, but something very sudden happened.” FlightRadar representatives also said they believed the plane had lost radar contact about 40 minutes into the flight, not two hours as the airline said.

Source here

This is a route (Kuala Lumpur to Beijing) I have flown - and at the same departure time.

[jplinville]

I really hope that this isn't a terrorist issue and merely a human or plane error.

[Txjake]

Doesn't look good. 777 has an excellent safety record. The stolen passports and other indicators may point towards terror strike.

[Txjake]

Malaysian government indicated four stolen passports, not good.

[tjts1]

The 777 doesn't simply fall out of the sky from cruising altitude without any warning. A bomb seems very likely in this case.