At this point, we still don’t know what happened. There are a number of indications that the pilot may have been involved and had malicious intent, but nothing is conclusive. The Malaysian government has been no help, with its constant secrecy, evasions and half-truths. “Hagel: Terrorism Not Ruled Out on Malaysia Airlines Flight,” by Bridget Johnson for PJ Media, March 26:
When specifically asked at a press conference with his UK counterpart at the Pentagon today, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that he’s still not ruling out terrorism in the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370.
“I don’t think at this point we can rule anything in or out. I think we have to continue to search, as we are. And you know the United States continues to stay committed,” Hagel said.
He noted the U.S. has aircraft working out of Malaysia and Perth, Australia, to assist in the search.
“So until we have more information, we don’t know,” he added.
On what it means for how the U.S. can prepare security-wise, Hagel said “I think any country — and I can only speak for the United States — always is evolving and is always recognizing new challenges and threats and trying to anticipate those.”
“That’s the mission of this enterprise, security of this country, working with all our interagency partners, intelligence, homeland security,” he said. “So the world is dangerous. We recognize that. There are new threats coming at us in different ways all the time. So you have to continue to prepare.”…
That’s just empty verbiage. Until Hagel and the rest of the intelligence and security establishment in Washington begin to speak honestly about the jihad threat, we are all vulnerable to being blindsided by an attack from a quarter that the Administration does not want to admit could be the source of an attack.
Hatfield says
Here’s a thought (perhaps not original): that the plane was sabotaged while on the ground. What about the airport maintenance crew? Have they been thoroughly vetted? Perhaps an electronic device was attached to the plane which interfered with the plane’s instrumentation. I’ve read where this is not as difficult as it seems.
dumbledoresarmy says
That is perfectly possible.
Which is why no Infidel airline should have Muslims anywhere among its employees – not just among cabin crew, but among the people on the ground, the people who service and clean the planes.
And planes should be very, very, very carefully watched every second of the time that they are on the ground.
Further thought: I have a suspicion that right now a lot of engineers are in their inventories, and that sooner rather than later, new improved tracking devices will be attached to civilian aircraft…devices that will *not* be able to be turned off by anybody on board the plane, and devices that will *not* be able to be readily interfered with/ jammed by either an internal or external source, and whose location (that is: the actual spot where one or more of these devices is fitted to the plane) will be known to a specific and very restricted security-cleared set of people.
Tom Davis says
Hi DDA,
Such tracking improvements to the ADS-B are being discussed. The airlines are against it because it means they will have to pay higher fees to Inmarsat, plus tens or hundreds of millions in equipment upgrades. So the only way it is going to happen is if it becomes a government mandate.
Personally I think that this one is going to happen. I’ve not seen any info regarding the required bandwidth versus Inmarsat’s capacity, but I have learned that Inmarsat does have plenty of reserve capacity.
Tom Davis says
Sorry, meant ACARS, not ADB-S
Michael Copeland says
“working with all our interagency partners”…..
Yeah, sure: just like with Boston over Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
mortimer says
Many parts of the story suggest either a highjacking or a terrorist mission gone wrong.
Jay Boo says
A babbling brook must have water or else it is just babbling without a brook.
Bezelel says
I can’t imagine Hagel’s internal dialogue trying to organize a position around an elephant in the living room.
Buraq says
Here’s what happened Chuck.
The senior pilot took the plane to cruising altitude and then made an excuse to get the co-pilot out of the cockpit. Once alone, he locked the re-enforced cabin door – not even an ax or gunshot can get through it.
He then took the plane above its altitude ceiling for 23 minutes to make sure the passengers and crew were asphyxiated. Then he turned the plane with its grisly cargo of dead on a new course. Hours later, it crashed into the ocean. The reason was to hide the fact that it was a deliberate act.
However, if even one body is recovered that shows signs of asphyxiation, then my theory will be proved. That was what the captain was trying to avoid by looking for a place that would be almost impossible to locate the plane.
BlueRaven says
Except, the co-pilot was given the captainency a few minutes before the take off in the brief. Another point, you can’t easily override the Auto-pilot function which is used after take-offs. Someone re-programmed the new route in the cockpit. The Malaysian has not made it completely clear about an extra person on the Aircraft – there were officially 12 crew members, but they announced 13 crew members missing. The aircraft was using volatile Nicol-metallic batteries in the cargo hold which are forbidden by the FAA.
If their Government was somewhat honest, we can get to the answer. I don’t understand why Chinese are so upset. They have killed a most number of people by capital punishment in 2013. I think there was some strange substance on the flight they needed urgently.
Jake Martinez says
Are 9 Dead Bankers A Sign Of Pending Economic Collapse and War? (Part 5)
http://teapartyorg.ning.com/profiles/blogs/are-9-dead-bankers-a-sign-of-pending-economic-collapse-and-war-1
“Food For Thought”
Hello-When Are Americans Going To Wake Up-God Bless America.
Semper Fi!
Jake
Medina says
I wonder why not one single soul on board made a cell call. Were they incapacitated as the plane ascended? Were the phones confiscated? We may never know what happened, but the fact that a MB compatriot was at the controls is damning.
Bill C. says
because there are no cell phone towers in the middle of the ocean.
Ya think?
Mazo says
Again, Robert tries to gave his cake and eat it too-
“There are a number of indications that the pilot may have been involved and had malicious intent, but nothing is conclusive. The Malaysian government has been no help, with its constant secrecy, evasions and half-truths”
The current UMNO Malaysian government has EVERY REASON to pin the blame on the pilot and scapegoat him because ANWAR IRBRAHIM IS THE OPPOSITION TO THE CURRENT MALAY GOV., WHICH JUST CONVICTED IBRAHIM ON TRUMPED UP SODOMY CHARGES.
Spencer tries to portray the pilot as a terrorist and bash Malaysian government at the same time (because its a Muslim country), ignoring the fact that all the alleged “evidence” implicating the pilot was RELEASED BY THE MALAYSIAN GOV. Since the pilot supports the opposition and Anwar Ibrahim, and openly insulted the current Malaysian transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein (who is leading the investigation into the plane crash and releasing the evidence), there is reason to take the “evidence” with a grain of salt.
Spencer attacked Robert Mackey for mentioning that the pilot insulted Hishamuddin- its because Hishamuddin himself was leading the investigation which is implicating the pilot.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/03/new-york-times-attempting-to-exonerate-malaysian-pilot-lies-about-robert-spencer/comment-page-1#comment-1026766
gravenimage says
Mazo wrote:
The current UMNO Malaysian government has EVERY REASON to pin the blame on the pilot and scapegoat him because ANWAR IRBRAHIM IS THE OPPOSITION TO THE CURRENT MALAY GOV., WHICH JUST CONVICTED IBRAHIM ON TRUMPED UP SODOMY CHARGES.
………………………………………
Not necessarily—and screaming all-caps does not make it so.
After all, Malaysian Airlines has strong links to the Malaysian government. It does not necessarily reflect well on the Malaysian authorities if they were employing such a sketchy, ultimately dangerous pilot, nor would it inspire much confidence in the airline in the future.
But what does it matter, from Mazo’s point of view? His entire purpose here is to try to cast doubt on the existence of the threat of Jihad, and he will take any tack he thinks might work to try to do just that.
Mazo says
Wrong again. The Malaysian UMNO government would showcase it as an example that they aren’t partisan when it comes to hiring employees.
Then blame the opposition (Ibrahim) for causing the disaster and try to link the pilot to Ibrahim
Cicero says
Anwar Ibrahim is indeed a vicious, antisemitic serpent. His IIIT (International Institute of Islamic Thought) is a Muslim Brotherhood front organization. (See http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2519)
On the other hand, Anwar Ibrahim is still trying to seize power through (somewhat) democratic means following the familiar National Socialist playbook. It does not make sense for Anwar Ibrahim to tolerate the mass murder of Chinese and Malaysian citizens by a vocal and prominent supporter – the fall-out would be fatal to any political ambitions in Malaysia, to say nothing of personal retribution by China.
More likely scenarios are either a blackmail operation against Malaysia that was intended to end without bloodshed but went wrong, or a Muslim jihadist operation not connected to Anwar Ibrahim, e.g. by Chinese Uighurs some of whom have found refuge in Malaysia.
The relevant governments (Malaysia, China, U.S.) certainly do NOT want this case to become known as a jihadist terror operation and would happily sacrifice the truth to “higher” political considerations.
Inchoate says
Re:
“The Malaysian government has been no help, with its constant secrecy, evasions and half-truths. ”
…..meaning that all of this fuzzy dis-information being scattered all over is simply all about “Face”, and the loss of a tremendous amount of it by a whole string of Malaysian Civil Aviation “authorities”. It certainly appears that this is a deliberate and clearly worked out subterfuge or, that it indicates that the Malaysian Civil Aviation “authorities” simply don’t know what they’re doing. We outsiders are left with only speculation. Forget th’ Media.
So, to chime in with my own theory here, it’d seem that the northern “arc” trajectory of these mysterious and elusive engine/satellite “pings” is being overcome by the Red Herring of the southern arc, waaay southwest of Perth…Perth?…of all places.
It’s interesting to consider, at least consider, that this very valuable Boeing aircraft is wanted for terrorism. Fly it towards the northwest and an unused former Brit. colonial airfield in Muslim Bangladesh [former Muslim East Pakistan], skillfully execute a hard, abrupt landing, then bus the passengers off to internment inside some old quonset hut holding area in careful isolation.
Avoiding radar by flying below their line-of-sight beams, flying through those mountainous areas as low as common sense permits, experienced area Malaysian Airlines Captains will be familiar with this challenge, add in here some indifferent Malay/Thai en route controllers and their ‘scopes obscured by ground ‘clutter’, a routine characteristic of radar.
Important: Upon landing keep an engine running to continue those six or so hourly “pings” from the engine to the engine manufacturers’ computer data bank. Still, flying, eh? Six hours, eh?
Remove the heavy passenger seats and galley equipment, install empty fuel bladders, remove the livery colors of Malaysian Airlines, get the necessary repair items from a sympathetic Pakistani Muslim maintenance crew, and we have now a terrifying flying Muslim Molotov cocktail. Suicidal Muslim pilots already prepped.
[John leCarre….call your office. I want 66% of the book and TV movie rights. Deal? ]