![]() "It needs a 10,000-foot runway, so where are you going to put it down?" "It's very difficult to steal a 777 with Malaysian markings," McGuirk said. ![]() The plane's northerly route may have taken it over remote areas where a Boeing 777 could potentially land - but landing a plane of that size without a functional runway would be difficult, particularly if the plane needs to fly again. One possible explanation for why a terrorist group wouldn't claim responsibility for a hijacking: They plan to use the plane later. In fact, it wasn't until 2003 that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi admitted the country's role in the bombing. For example, when Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, investigators spent three years before issuing arrest warrants for two Libyan men. Alternatively, whoever commandeered the plane could have been an expert in aircraft and flown it themselves.Īuthorities have not ruled out terrorism as a cause no groups have come forward to claim responsibility or make demands, however. The pilots also may have been forced by terrorists aboard the plane to disconnect the communications and change course, before crashing somewhere. Shah reportedly had strong political views and an at-home flight simulator however, strong views do not necessarily suggest terrorism, and many pilots practice or play with flight simulators at home. If one or both of the pilots did decide to reroute the plane, the motive they would have for doing so is unclear. "The farther to the radar, the harder to positively identify a so-called non-cooperative aircraft," Cenciotti said. But the fact that the waypoints were so close to the edge of the Malaysian airspace boundary suggests they were deliberately chosen to obscure the plane's path. Programming the plane toward the navigational waypoints it appeared to be following wouldn't take too much expertise, he told Live Science. Still, the actions of the plane after the communications were turned off look deliberate, Cenciotti said. "If that's the case, then somebody knew exactly where the radar coverage gap was and decided to act at that moment," McGuirk said. Some countries, including India, also have gaps in their radar coverage, McGuirk said. Over the ocean, however, there can be no ground-based antennas. Over the continental United States, radar overlaps so there are no gaps. Radar only has a radius of 150 to 200 miles (240 to 320 kilometers), McGuirk said. The transponder, however, reportedly went off just as the plane was being handed off from Malaysian air traffic control to Vietnamese air traffic control. Turning off the transponder and ACARS in the cockpit is as easy as flipping a switch and turning off a breaker, McGuirk told Live Science. This theory banks on the technical knowledge needed to change the plane's flight path, as well as suspicious circumstances around the flight's timing. "Why would you take 200 other people with you, a logical individual would want to know?" said Gregory "Sid" McGuirk, a professor of air traffic control at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.Īnother theory holds that the pilots, or one of them, deliberately rerouted the plane for other reasons. MH370 flew for hours after contact was lost. But the explanation seems strange: Other pilots who have committed suicide-by-plane have aimed the nose at the ground and ended it quickly. Something similar could have happened to Flight 370. The plane's trajectory could be explained by the captain's deliberate action, however. ![]() National Transportation Safety Board concluded. There were no mechanical failures to explain why the plane went into a vertical dive, the U.S. Similarly, SilkAir Flight 185, which crashed in Sumatra in 1997, may have been a pilot suicide. investigators concluded that a 1999 crash near Nantucket, which killed all 217 people onboard EgyptAir Flight 990, was the result of the co-pilot deliberately flying the plane into the sea (Egyptian investigators dispute that finding). Pilot suicide would be highly unusual, but not unprecedented. Theoretically, one of these men could have decided to commit suicide by airplane. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, and 1st Officer Fariq Ab Hamid, 27. The expertise required to conduct these maneuvers has investigators looking into the pilot and co-pilot, Capt. "Based on the details surfaced so far, it seems to have been a very well-planned and performed operation," said David Cenciotti, a former Italian Air Force pilot and journalist, who blogs at. Military satellite detected it west of the Malaysian peninsula at 2:15 a.m. The plane then turned from its Beijing-bound route. ( See full infographic) (Image credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist) More than two weeks after its strange disappearance, Malaysian officials announced they believe Flight 370 crashed into the sea.
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