General Chat

Annie. We all think when this happens - we will never fly, 30,000 feet up and we are helpless etc.

But most of us will fly in next few months. And it is safer than driving down to Sainsbury, I believe.

Personally, I think it is about time Sainsbury did something about their accident record. I shop in Lidl where you arrive at entrance and an assistant takes your keys and parks up for you. :-D ;-)

Hope you have a lovely time, you lucky girl :-D :-D

No, certainly not ancient and with an excellent safety record. I have a flight booked in a couple of weeks with Malaysian Airways from Kuala Lumpur

Annie

A slight correction to Rollo's post - the aircraft was 12 years old, not 18. Not particularly ancient as modern airliners go.

No deaths confirmed as of this morning. Chinese authorities (who don't like Malaysia much) putting pressure to find out what has happened to this plane.

Oil slicks seen were from a tanker, so ruled out. No debris in sea yet confirmed as part of plane. No black box signal, which automatically happens when a plane hits sea or land.

Both illegal tickets were bought for Iranians by a Mr Ali. One is an asylum seeker with no terrorist contacts that can be established.

Hopefully today will provide some news and resolve what has happened to these passengers. It must be just the most terrible thing for relatives to wait like this.

I heard on news that the oil slicks were from a tanker, so not the plane. There was also mention of a piece of metal in the water looking like a plane door.

It all seems very mysterious that there was no mayday call and no sign of anything else.

I feel so sorry for the families left waiting for news.

My o.h. has now been put off flying even more, not sure I will manage to get him on a plane again. He is nervous at the best of times.

Lizx

Really odd. Very interesting post, Rollo. They found two long oil slicks and some flotsam - but it would be easy to fake that if plane was being hi-jacked.

Bermuda Triangle?

So far all of the various air disasters over the sea during the last 40 years have one thing in common whether the cause of the crash was a bomb, pilot error or a fault in the aircraft. The common factor is that wreckage was found, even in the stormy seas of the South Atlantic (Air France - pilot error) or way out west from Ireland in the North Atlantic (Air India - bomb).

The sea between Malaysia and Vietnam is not very deep. The weather is warm and sunny. Some sort of evidence of a crash should be found within a week.

Despite comments on the news it is a fact that Boeing airliners have suffered catastrophic airframe faults in the past ( eg Air China) always on older well thrashed aircraft. The plane lost was 18 years old i.e. ancient.

And if not ?
Marie Celeste 2? Hi jack ? UFO ? Maybe G Heather will have an idea.Travelling on false passports is not at all unusual.

It is possible to disable the transponder which reports aircraft ID and height - the principal way in which ATC tracks the planes. The 777 had plenty of fuel and range. Although SE Asia is lowish on terrorism it has a good many highly organised criminal organisations deeply embedded into all the SE Asian states ( and Birmingham). None of them take prisoners. Just a thought.

The Chinese are beginning to suspect Malaysia of some sort of cover up or at the extreme edge complicity. For better or worse Malay / Chinese relationships have never been very good. This disaster is certainly not helping.

Brian

" if it were a terrorist attack it seems strange that no-one has claimed responsibility (yet). Let's hope it's not the start of a campaign!"


My thoughts exactly. :-(

Bit strange the passengers phones ringing, when relatives phoned them after the event though :-0

Think they found out who one of the two illegal passnegers was today. But not released any details yet.

Brian. Lovely to see you posting. Have missed your posts :-D :-D

The fact that there was no Mayday call or emergency beacon triggered points to the conclusion that there was a sudden and complete disintegration at altitude.
Two passports stolen at different times being used together certainly raises a big question.
However, if it were a terrorist attack it seems strange that no-one has claimed responsibility (yet). Let's hope it's not the start of a campaign!

Says on news that one possible line of investigation is a terrorist attack.

John


they have released those names!

at least, I have literally just read them in the MailOnLine, and I heard them earlier on the news on a Canadian radio station

There seems to be a huge industry in stealing passports. Would this be representative. 2% of passports that passengers are using are stolen!!!!

Thank goodness they haven;t released names of the safe "passengers" in Italy and Austria.

and now they are saying that 2 passports that were stolen about 2 years ago in Thailand were used by passengers on that plane.

The NOK of the passport holders, an Italian and an Austrian, were notified of the missing plane, but their loved ones are still alive


that raises all kinds of horrid thoughts

How horrible...........those poor innocent people :-(

unconfirmed reports of an oil slick in the South China sea - dreadful

I have been in a plane crash - in Egypt.
Just for fun I have also been a helicopter crash too - Iraq.
S-t happens.
Do I still fly ? Of course I do.

Some day your number is up and there is nothing you can do about it - ask most Asians or any foot soldier.

How tragic, my thoughts are with their families and friends.

Tania I hope your right about the double, triple and quadruple checking of the equipment...our daughter flies out of Bangkok today at 12 noon (UK time) a quick stop in Bahrain then onto Heathrow.

I hope she hasn't heard the horrific news.

Lesley x

You will be fine Allan
The majority of crashes originate in Asia and Africa
And as always when such an awful event occurs airlines and pilots around the world will be double triple and quadruple checking there equipment and there pilot skills

Horrific, everybody who flies nightmare.