Plane with 239 people on board crashes in Southern Indian Ocean

[Donerail]

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So it's probably not an electrical fire either.

[DINGO Joe]

Radio this morning was quoting reports from the Maldives of a very low-flying jet passing overhead and continuing out to sea at about the right time for this flight to have possibly have reached there. Apparently said jet was white with red stripes.

So... we have sightings in the Maldives, we have a search area the size of France 3000km to the west of Perth, we have the theory of an electrical fire (which is plausible), the satellite images that could be wreckage in the Straits of Malacca... it's just f'ing nuts.

Speaking of f'ing nuts:

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/courtney-love-claims-she-may-have-found-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-picture-2014183

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Radio this morning was quoting reports from the Maldives of a very low-flying jet passing overhead and continuing out to sea at about the right time for this flight to have possibly have reached there. Apparently said jet was white with red stripes.

So... we have sightings in the Maldives, we have a search area the size of France 3000km to the west of Perth, we have the theory of an electrical fire (which is plausible), the satellite images that could be wreckage in the Straits of Malacca... it's just f'ing nuts.

Speaking of f'ing nuts:

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/courtney-love-claims-she-may-have-found-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-picture-2014183

Wouldn't it be the one awesome element of this story? Courtney Love solves MH370 mystery with MS Paint

[Eraserhead]

Ah, Republicans...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/17/lawmaker-missing-airliner-may-have-landed-in-southeast-asia-for-use-as-weapon/

...and Alex Jones lol:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100263811/missing-plane-may-return-to-the-skies-as-a-nuclear-weapon-you-guessed-it-alex-jones-is-all-over-this/

[Mr. Morden]

http://time.com/29958/malaysia-files-were-deleted-from-flight-simulator/

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[Simfan34]

Ah, Republicans...

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/17/lawmaker-missing-airliner-may-have-landed-in-southeast-asia-for-use-as-weapon/

...and Alex Jones lol:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100263811/missing-plane-may-return-to-the-skies-as-a-nuclear-weapon-you-guessed-it-alex-jones-is-all-over-this/

This is hardly something thought only by them, however.

But no background checks for ukrainians and russians.... MORE PROOF! I'd say I'm at 35% certainty of my conspiracy theory.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

But no background checks for ukrainians and russians.... MORE PROOF! I'd say I'm at 35% certainty of my conspiracy theory.

I'm not certain, but I think they are a bit distracted at the moment.  Certainly the Ukrainians are.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

God Bless the Onion

[Mr. Morden]

The Australian Marine Safety Authority says they may have found the wreckage:

http://www.watoday.com.au/national/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-debris-found-in-search-for-mh370-says-australian-prime-minister-tony-abbott-20140320-354xz.html

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[Mr. Morden]

Again, looking like this might be it:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/search-crews-objects-plane-search/story?id=22979627

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[President Tyrion]

Watch them uncover a cargo liner or something from like 1960.

[Tender Branson]

Again, looking like this might be it:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/search-crews-objects-plane-search/story?id=22979627

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Hopefully it's the plane finally and not this:

[Tender Branson]

Also, my "young co-pilot sex-theory" is now becoming slightly more likely if the plane is found between Australia and Antarctica:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=189121.msg4090767#msg4090767

[Mr. Morden]

I'm watching the coverage via the Sydney Morning Herald's blog:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-debris-found-in-search-for-mh370-says-australian-prime-minister-tony-abbott-20140320-354xz.html

Sounds like they'll keep searching until 9pm Perth time (which is just over 2 hours from now).  If they don't find anything, they'll resume the search first thing tomorrow morning.

Also, here's one of the satellite pics:

[Mr. Morden]

Here's a useful map:



Also, apparently, the weather is poor and visibility bad there at the moment, so they're not having much luck.

[Tender Branson]

Hopefully it is the plane, but to "rescue" it or what is left of it will be really hard: The area is really remote, with almost no islands in the area. The depth of the water there is between 1000 and 5000 meters and the weather is bad as well. The waves are 3-6 meters high at the moment, which means rescuing the flight recorder won't be easy either.

Also, the satellite data is already 4 days old and the debris could now already be more than 100km away from where the satellite found it.

And, they need to be quick: In 18 days, the battery of the flight recorder is running out and then they'll likely never find it.

[Mr. Morden]

And, they need to be quick: In 18 days, the battery of the flight recorder is running out and then they'll likely never find it.

This graphic suggests that even if the black box is still pinging, it's possible that it's too deep for them to ever find it:

[Mr. Morden]

Btw, if this is the plane, then its location suggests that after it doubled back across the Malay Peninsula, it went almost straight south.

[Tender Branson]

Yepp, the southern Indian Ocean is probably one of the worst areas for a plane to disappear.

And if the currents are strong, it could be that the flight recorder is hundreds of kilometers away from where the debris is ...

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I knew Mr. Modern was somehow responsible.  Damn.

[Reaganfan]

Picture of the wildlife from an island within a thousand miles of this area. Talk about remote.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Thing to consider is that the Titanic wreck is at just under 3800m ... and that's considered a big deal to get down here (2 hours down and 2 back up) ...

RF - that's the Rockhopper Penguin, they almost exclusively are in South Atlantic. But that close to Antarctica, there are penguins a-plenty on all of those little outcrops

[Reaganfan]

Thing to consider is that the Titanic wreck is at just under 3800m ... and that's considered a big deal to get down here (2 hours down and 2 back up) ...

RF - that's the Rockhopper Penguin, they almost exclusively are in South Atlantic. But that close to Antarctica, there are penguins a-plenty on all of those little outcrops

I have a fascination with asteroid impacts, mega-tsunamis, and some may have occurred in this region.

There is new evidence that an asteroid (not Dinosaur killer size, but still large) hit east of Madagascar about 5,000 years ago or so and may have created those large cliffs in the region of the Indian Ocean and may be the reason for the Biblical flood myths of the Cradle of Civilization.

[Mr. Morden]

If you have some free time, you can search through satellite pictures of the Indian Ocean, to see if you can find any of the debris:

http://www.tomnod.com/nod/challenge/malaysiaairsar2014/map/552252

Btw, one of the experts I saw on TV sounded skeptical that the supposed 24 meter long feature in the satellite image came from the plane.  He said that that would be big enough to be something like a wing, but a wing would likely sink.  The things that would float would be much smaller objects, like life preservers and seat cushions.  If that's true, then it seems like there's a decent chance that they never find anything.  Or maybe they'll find a couple of seat cushions somewhere, but it would have drifted so far from the crash site by now that there's a strong chance that they'll never find the vast majority of the wreckage.

When was the last time that a plane went missing, and no wreckage was ever found?

[Mr. Morden]

OTOH, China just announced that they have a satellite image of a 22.5 meter long object that might be the same debris that was in the American satellite pic released a few days ago.  The object was spotted 120 km away from the debris in the American picture, but the currents are fast, so that's not surprising:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2014/03/malaysia-asks-us-underwater-surveillance-2014321211913431982.html