Cops find five Indian Ocean practice runways in MH370 pilot’s simulator

http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/cops-find-five-indian-ocean-practice-runways-in-mh370-pilots-simulator-bh-r

by hkphooey • 12 years ago

35 58 12 years ago

themalaymailonline.com

hkphooey5• 12 years ago

The five airports are located in the Maldives, Diego Garcia, India and Sri Lanka.

News out today claims multiple eye-witnesses in the Maldives:

"Residents of the remote Maldives island of Kuda Huvadhoo in Dhaal Atoll have reported seeing a "low flying jumbo jet" on the morning of the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

They said that it was a white aircraft, with red stripes across it – which is what the Malaysia Airlines flights typically look like.

...

"I've never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We've seen seaplanes, but I'm sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly," said an eyewitness.

"It's not just me either, several other residents have reported seeing the exact same thing. Some people got out of their houses to see what was causing the tremendous noise too."

http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062

wikiburner• 12 years ago

Yep, I was just about to post this one:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/1070...

Shivetya• 12 years ago

I was under the impression this is rule out because the timing is eight hours after it vanished

hkphooey5• 12 years ago

The last INMARSAT ping was at 8:11am, the plane lost contact around 1:19am, so it's possible.

http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/16/satcom-acars-explained/

Note the comments in the above link, the authorities have only released the INMARSAT ARC corresponding to a single ping. They have not released the ARCs for all the pings which would indicate if the plane was flying West or not.

It may be that authorities are already investigating the Maldives and possible follow-on destinations, but do not want to publicly alert the pilot/hijackers that they are on their trail, so in public the focus has been on the northern corridor and Kazakhstan.

superuser2• 12 years ago

Why didn't they come forward before? Seems a little odd that they waited until after other evidence pointed to an island landing to claim they saw the plane.

mikeash7• 12 years ago

Why would they think it was related? They're about 2,000 miles away from where the plane was originally thought to have crashed, and saw it hours after it supposedly crashed.

Imagine a plane goes missing in Hawaii and hours later you see an unusual plane over San Francisco. The news is talking about how the plane disappeared over Hawaii and crashed into the ocean around there and lots of planes and ships are combing the waters around Hawaii... are you really going to connect your unusual sighting with those events happening half an ocean away?

xefer• 12 years ago

All the stories seem to be quoting the same source, which seems a bit shaky.

"Satellite data suggests that the last “ping” was recieved from the flight somwhere close to the Maldives and the US naval base on Diego Garcia."

Where is this coming from? Nowhere have I seen anything to suggest there was a "ping" anywhere specific. We've only heard about ping data along non-specific arcs well away from the Maldives.

martinjones• 12 years ago

This does sounds like a solid lead - maybe the most interesting news in the last few days.

RobotCaleb• 12 years ago

Breaking news. Most pilots with flight simulators have airports loaded into them that fall within regions in which they might fly.

malandrew• 12 years ago

I'm actually surprised that most simulators don't have many if not all major runways (1000+ meters) loaded on them.

fname• 12 years ago

I didn't see anything in the news... Was KUL-PEK a normal route for this pilot? Makes a lot of sense to have and practice on runways in the area you take off or land into the most.

MatthiasP• 12 years ago

This sounds like a prejudgment.

kjs35• 12 years ago

Pilot who flies in the area of the Indian Ocean has Indian Ocean airports on his practice setup. Obviously, a smoking gun. Also good that the defense minister denied the plane landed at Diego Garcia, because who in the world would notice it sitting there for a week?

What's Malay for "Keystone Kops".

fleitz3• 12 years ago

Royal Malaysia Police

hkphooey5• 12 years ago

Maybe there's something lost in translation but I guess the story was leaked to journalists because the runways were specially designated i.e. bookmarked or set-up for regular practice with waypoints similar to what investigators have found.

I'm not a pilot, but I imagine if I were, I would want to try landing at airports I normally wouldn't. So in the simulator I would probably pick the world's toughest runways, the most scenic ones, runways on the other side of the world...

The Malaysians are being criticized but I don't think many countries would do that much better given the task in hand. Sure, the public relations and messaging should be better, but I'm sure there's a lot of stuff going on that we don't know about.

mikeash7• 12 years ago

I don't believe that idea that other countries wouldn't do better.

They had the military radar data the night the plane went missing, indicating that the plane did not in fact crash near where the transponder shut down, but flew west for over an hour before disappearing off the radar in that direction.

Despite having this information available, they either ignored it or didn't think to ask for it or something, and as a result they wasted massive amounts of time and effort (theirs and that of other countries) searching the wrong ocean. For a week.

That military radar data is probably the most important information in the investigation that wasn't immediately known. Yet it didn't actually come to light until days later, and then when it did their immediate reaction was to deny that it was true! It took another couple of days before they finally settled down and admitted, yes, we tracked this plane flying completely out of the search area and far away from where we've been telling everyone it is. And we knew this for a couple of days, but we let everybody continue searching the wrong place anyway. In fact, we'll still let them keep searching for a couple more days before we refocus.

There is some serious WTF going on. I hope there is some massive coverup or conspiracy going on, because they're verging on criminally incompetent otherwise.

kjs35• 12 years ago

I would suggest you look at how an NTSB or EASA investigation is conducted and compare it to the pageant of incompetence displayed by everyone involved in the MH370 investigation and get back to us on that "couldn't do better" thought.

oxryly1• 12 years ago

If a Malaysian pilot with a simulator DIDN'T have these airports readily available in his simulator I'd be kinda shocked.

seanalltogether• 12 years ago

And how many other practice runways were also on the simulator? Zero...one hundred?

andyjohnson02• 12 years ago

Is it common for professional pilots to have flight simulators at home?

Edit: added "professional"

fleitz3• 12 years ago

Is it common for developers to have compilers at home?

lvs• 12 years ago

Is it common for surgeons to have scalpels at home?

andyjohnson02• 12 years ago

I'm a developer, but I don't go home and simulate programing. You seem to be answering a different question: is it common for professional pilots to fly recreationally?

mikeash7• 12 years ago

Yes, every reasonably tech-savvy pilot I know has at least a minimal flight simulator setup to play with.

dingaling• 12 years ago

I admittedly have a small sample set of two commercial pilots, but they're much like any other corporate workers.

Once they're home they crash-out and relax. Make a meal, have a shower. Check Facebook.

Their day job is pretty boring* and they're not particuarly interested in replicating it on a computer.

* where did you fly today? Oh, a runway in Portugal and another one in Malta.

kjs35• 12 years ago

This particular pilot made instructional flight videos for YouTube on his home flight simulator. Not everyone hates their job.

mikeash7• 12 years ago

My sample is clearly biased, but a lot of people in my flying club fly for a living with airlines or the military, then come fly some more in a recreational capacity with the club.

fleitz3• 12 years ago

In other news inspecting Michael Schumacher's copy of GT5 indicates he practiced on Formula 1 tracks.

kjs35• 12 years ago

It's much worse...NASCAR. Clearly, he's involved somehow.

chrisBob• 12 years ago

If this was deliberate, and that pilot is the one behind it, then he probably put some thought into what was saved on his home flight simulator also. Anyone who vanishes a 777 for over a week probably put a little effort into details like that.

hkphooey5• 12 years ago

Good point, so any bookmarked runways could be a complete red herring...

beaner2• 12 years ago

What if it stopped there to refuel and then took off again?

notahacker3• 12 years ago

If you assume the conspiracy involves the Air Traffic Control and fuel handling services at Male Airport, plus any tourists or Maldivians in the two population centres a few hundred metres away, then the theory of them sneaking a massive jet in and out of Male airport without anybody noticing becomes a distinct possibility.

beaner2• 12 years ago

Just thinking out loud I guess.

Altneratively: it went to Diego Garcia, and the US military is in on it. No civilians or public air services required. It refueled and launched again from there.

Don't necessarily believe these are likely, it's just interesting to think about.

evanm• 12 years ago

This article is so misleading, starting with the title.

"Cops find five Indian Ocean practice Runways..." seems to suggest these runways were used for practice by Shah. This article says nothing more than these were runway options (out of probably thousands) that were available for simulation. There is no useful information from this piece at all, and it is leading to completely unwarranted speculation, especially by folks who have no knowledge of flying and simulators.

sentenza• 12 years ago

It's not even like there is anyting suspicious about having a bunch of runways close to his regular routes on his simulator to practice on.

I'd almost expect something like this from a pilot that takes his trade seriously. After all, where do you have to land in case of emergency, if not on some runway near your regular routes.

revelation• 12 years ago

The speculation around this seems rather pointless. Obviously, at this time, the plane has neither crashed into anything or magically converted water into fuel, nor has it landed anywhere it could fly off from again.

So how about we find it first (stuck in some jungle as its guaranteed to be) and then let facts guide our wild speculations?

Cops find five Indian Ocean practice runways in MH370 pilot’s simulator

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