[OhJstFkOffAlrdy]

My guess? This plane is going to turn up somewhere, along with all of its passengers-turned-hostages. Shortly thereafter, a 200+-victim beheadathon video will find its way on to DR and Chris will shut the whole site down knowing that nothing will ever top that, evar.

[Kelseecat65]

Just heard on the news two interesting things...

Final communications from the pilot came after the data system had been disabled.

The hard left turn was programmed into the flight plan…presumably by the Pilot.

(Either the flight was commandeered by a group with at least one professionally trained pilot among them or one of the pilots in control programmed the new off-route flight plan into the flight management system.)

Sounds like the Pilot is our man. What group (if any) is he then tied into? Or is he a rouge Pilot with other motives?

[OhJstFkOffAlrdy]

Well, it's a Malaysian airline, so I'm willing to bet that the pilot is more yellow than rouge.

But the pilot doesn't necessarily have to be the person who programmed the flight plan. Anyone with the proper experience and training could have done it after gaining access to the cockpit.

[Kelseecat65]

Originally Posted by Metal Mike ↗

Well, it's a Malaysian airline, so I'm willing to bet that the pilot is more yellow than rouge.

But the pilot doesn't necessarily have to be the person who programmed the flight plan. Anyone with the proper experience and training could have done it after gaining access to the cockpit.

Does the flight plan have to be done prior to take off? I don't know much about how that works.

[OhJstFkOffAlrdy]

Originally Posted by Kelseecat65 ↗

Does the flight plan have to be done prior to take off? I don't know much about how that works.

Neither do I, but I would imagine that it can be programmed mid-flight as a contingency. There's a lot that can go wrong when a plane is in the air, so it makes sense that a pilot would be able to rely on a plane's auto-pilot should circumstances warrant the use of a Plan B.

[Kelseecat65]

Originally Posted by Metal Mike ↗

Neither do I, but I would imagine that it can be programmed mid-flight as a contingency. There's a lot that can go wrong when a plane is in the air, so it makes sense that a pilot would be able to rely on a plane's auto-pilot should circumstances warrant the use of a Plan B.

I just saw on the news that the eventual sharp left turn was pre programmed into the flight plan before take off...
Also, they are questioning if members of the ground crew were in on it, as there was so much extra fuel.

[Xfactor]

Originally Posted by Kelseecat65 ↗

Does the flight plan have to be done prior to take off? I don't know much about how that works.

No autopilot relies on a flight plan and can be changed or disable autopilot and fly manual.

[gatagato]

Originally Posted by Kelseecat65 ↗

I just saw on the news that the eventual sharp left turn was pre programmed into the flight plan before take off...
Also, they are questioning if members of the ground crew were in on it, as there was so much extra fuel.

Area navigation (RNAV) is a method of instrument flight rules (IFR) navigation that allows an aircraft to choose any course within a network of navigation beacons, rather than navigating directly to and from the beacons. This can conserve flight distance, reduce congestion, and allow flights into airports without beacons. Area navigation used to be called "random navigation", hence the acronym RNAV

I don't think that they could take-off with a flight plan that had nothing to do with the normal route:

what the plane did (according to what we know so far) is not just a sharp turn, it drastically changed flight path and destination several times, but yet using wayponts as reference; a waypoint never changes its position in terms of latitude/longitude and it's given a five-letter names: in the case of MH370, it first reached a waipont that it was supposed to reach (Igari), then changed path and flew towards a waypoint far away from its original route, Vampi; then it turned again, and flew towards another waypoint, Gival: then turned again and flew towards Igrex (the last-know waypont that it may have reached); that's why they say it was flying towards Andaman and Nicobar islands, and why they mention manual data entry. Since the transponder was off, these informations could come only from primary radar (most likely military) plots.

So, basically, this is not what happened.


This, is what happened.


Plus, the aircraft sent out automated responses every now and then, satellite received them so there's little-to-zero doubts it was flying hours after it lost contact with ATC.

[Kelseecat65]

Originally Posted by gatagato ↗

I don't think that they could take-off with a flight plan that had nothing to do with the normal route:

Thank you for that info! Not sure where/why the news is saying that....they are as lost as the plane is!

Interesting read...wow...this is quite a mystery.

[DiamondSmiles]