Eye On Miami: We Miss Nothing … Your Source For News On The Malaysian Plane Crash … by gimleteye

EOM readers are the first to have the latest news from the Malaysian aviation community. Yes it's Monday and the post is dated Saturday, but why should network news get to dominate their schedule with plane crash news. We have needs too.

From: Mohan Ranganathan [mailto:mohlak@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2014 7:56 PM
To: v.r. Lakshminarayanan; Usha Ravi; suresh lakshminarayanan; rama lakshminarayanan; Latha Krishnaiyer
Subject: MH 370 flight

Dear all,

You will be wondering about the MAS flight that disappeared. I was on NDTV last night and here is the show:
http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-buck-stops-here/was-malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-hijacked/313352?hp&livevideo-featured

I had a query from the Hindu Rep from China and wanted my opinion on what was released by the Malaysian government. this was the response I sent.

Mohan

I got the latest Jeppessen Enroute chart for the area and I have marked some possible scenarios based on the reports that have come out.

The initial climb to 45000ft when he turned west after switching off the transponder would have been a ploy to appear to have been a take over by a Hijacker/ Unlawful interference in the cockpit. The descent to 23000ft is another ploy to indicate that and make it appear like a take over.

The maximum altitude for a B777 is 43000ft but Boeing would have tested that upto 48000ft for certifying Max level at 43000ft. ONLY A PILOT/ENGINEER who knows the aircraft certification well would know this.

The climb back to 29500ft , which is a VFR (Visual flight Rules) altitude that is normally followed by military aircraft when they fly RVSM ( Reduced Vertical Separation Minima)  routes without the mandatory equipment. A civilian aircraft is restricted to 28000ft max, if it does not have the equipment. This non-standard altitude might be in order to pass through military radar areas !!

Since the flight was following the airway, it is most likely that the military radars at Car Nicobar and Port blair may not have reacted since it is the middle of the night and, probably, the official may be sleeping and an untrained airman/sailor maybbe watching the screen. Miliatry radars cannot paint secondary radar signatures and only the primary radar track.

He would have turned southwest to avoid all radars and flown well south of Sri Lanka.

If this is a heist, it is probably somewhere in a remote island in Indian ocean, or, it may have made an unscheduled landing at GAN island ( which belongs to Maldives), refuelled and proceeded west to some African airport , maybe Somalia. The passengers may be alive and released in some remote desert.

If it is a suicide, he would have put it down at highspeed vertical dive into the bottom of Indian ocean, way south of Sri Lanka where there are no ships or aircraft passing and it will be lost for ever. In this case, there will be no survivors.