wrote in message
...
On Tue, 18 Mar 2014 12:54:26 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:

"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
"Robert Green" wrote:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03...ectrical-fire/

A must read article by a pilot who posits a completely logical scenario
that
explains everything we know so far. There was a fire on the plane, the
pilots climbed as high as possible to extinguish it and then turned
towards
the longest, "best chance" airport.

The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah1 was a very
experienced
senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were
drilled
to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise.
Airports
behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They're always in
our head. Always. If something happens, you don't want to be thinking
about
what are you going to do-you already know what you are going to do. When
I
saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was
heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a
13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The
captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had
8,000-foot
ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi,
which
also was closer.


If they have the flight path right, this dies not fit the facts.

That, of course, is a big if. I wonder if they were even *watching* the
radar. After a big disaster like this, lots of people in the "chain of
events" go into pure "cover your ass" mode.

Why would they head out into the Indian Ocean if they were looking for
a place to land?

Because they overshot the landing strip they were heading for. That might
be due to incapacity of the crew, the controls or both. It fits more of the
facts than any of the other theories presented, doesn't turn a 18,000 hour
pilot into a mass-murderer and is consistent with the plane flying off into
the sunset. Why would a hijacker do that? It smacks of a plane without
human control of any kind. It also explains the brief excursion to 45K feet
and then the reduction of altitude to a (barely) breathable height.

--
Bobby G.