They don't open the rear hatch at 30,000 feet for drops.

What about the altitude makes a hole in the fuselage a catastrophic event? Lots of passenger jets have landed safely after having a (sometimes large) hole appear in the fuselage at cruising altitude.

Yeah, PARFers why don't you run Archie for President?

OK then, lets have shoot outs on planes at cruising altitudes! OK Coral at 30,000 feet!

Oye....

Por, do the math if you have to. What do jets pressurize the cabin to? ... Let's call it shy 1 atm, and put the jet in space ..call it 14psi delta just to be extreme. Now, just how fast do you expect the air around a 14psi bullet hole to be rushing? ...think of the air pushing out of a valve stem of an almost flat tire at 14 psi. (oh the violent carnage.)

Here is a new angle: MH370 could have been hacked by smart phone and commandeered!

Missing Malaysia Airlines plane may have been 'cyber-hijacked' using mobile phone | World | News | Daily Express

A catastrophic decompression can be just as dramatic as hollywood portrays...There are several examples of decompression literally tearing a fuselage apart. Air out of a valve stem is one example of a leak from a few atmospheres, so is a balloon popping.
The Aloha airlines aircraft that landed as a convertible had a fuselage crack lead to a catastrophic decompression that ended up tearing a good portion of the top of the cabin off, after a flight attendant was thrown hard into the structure by the escaping air and caused the crack to extend to a massive failure.
Gun fire in a pressurized aircraft is most certainly not a good idea. And to the point mentioned of high altitude drops from military aircraft, they depressurize before breaching the cabin.

Total BS....certainly no way they could over rule crew input.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1394956515.jpg

It looks like they jump from 35,000 .....If they don't open the hatch how do they get out of the plane?


High-altitude military parachuting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

HALO jumps occur from extreme altitudes sometimes from aircraft that don't pressurize the cabin area and some after in flight controlled decompression. At that point opening a door is not a particularly dangerous task, though windy as hell.
If you look at a door on a pressurized aircraft at say a 10 PSI differential, say the door is 9 square feet, every square foot is 144 square inches, each inch experiences an outward pressure of 10 lbs, that means the door as a whole is stressed to the tune of 12 960 lbs

The Dehaviland Comet is a good example of a structural failure due to pressurization, I think they lost 3 before they figured out square windows were a bad idea.

Yup. At altitude there is a significant pressure difference between the atmosphere and airplane fuselage. If you create a small hole, there is a huge amount of pressure on that now compromised area of the fuselage trying to make it a bigger hole. So it's not so much the pressurization leak (airplanes always leak), it's the good chance that the little hole is going to get much bigger. That's why shooting a hole in the fuselage of a pressurized airplane is very much not a good idea.

HALO jumps are a totally different deal. The cargo bay is depressurized so it is equal to the outside atmosphere, and the jumpers and crew are on oxygen.

Mythbusters...

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4yG2h1aDB6k?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Found it!
Boeing 777-300

https://scontent-a-sea.xx.fbcdn.net/...12791412_n.jpg

I am wondering if the flight simulator the captain had in his home could give a clue on what kind of manovers he was training for. We may find that he was training for fast ascensions to 45,000 feet to knock out the passengers, and that would make him the culprit. I am not sure if the software keeps track of it though, like a black box, but that is definitely something to look into. The next question is about motive, and I will never understand why people who want to commit suicide also feel they have to take 200+ lives with them.

We're not even going to know another real fact until the plane is found.

Even then, there may not be much useful data in the CVR.

The FDR might capture the final moments and the last flight.

Don't try to understand suicide. Your sane. Only the insane can understand it.

And taking a bunch of people with you is the ultimate act of a coward.

How common is it for a commercial pilot to build and maintain his own sophisticated (or so it's been described) simulator in his own home, all for his own personal use?

We're not even going to know another real fact until the plane is found.

Even then, there may not be much useful data in the CVR.

The FDR might capture the final moments and the last flight.

maybe it's been covered already but I was wondering if knowledge to disable the critical flight systems is common training for the 777 pilots, or does it point to a very knowledgeable insider ?

^^Spot on.^^

Everything, to date, is speculation as it has to be in any investigation but in nearly all other investigations, there is an increase in real facts as the investigation progresses. The truly unfortunate circumstance in this case is that the speculation--theories, if you will--can only be supported or dismissed by pieces of data which, themselves, are open to interpretation and are not real, verifiable facts. The most concrete data relate to speculations as to the plane's location (satellite pings) but it becomes pure speculation with no verifiable evidence as to from where the pings last emitted.

As to the persons responsible, there are no real facts as yet and may never be, even if the plane is found and there are no survivors. Certainly finding the black boxes will answer lots of technical questions and confirm original theories, but they will likely never help determine the individuals responsible nor the motive for the entire situation. The best source for evidence of motive would be the CVR which records over itself after 2 1/2 hours. Not only did the flight last longer than that, but whoever was responsible and knew enough to hide the flight would be smart enough to disable or make sure the CVR did not disclose any information (speculation, of course) unless it was intentional.

Assuming the interpretation of data is correct, the leading theories point to human intervention by a highly skilled/knowledge individual or individuals who took the plane purposely in a different direction and destination. That's about it. Certainly someone with familiarity with 777's was involved--could be the pilot or anyone who researched the plane in depth. Likely the pilot was involved but willingly? Pure speculation with no data.

The plane will likely be found. The responsible parties and the motive may never be determined.

IMO... The plane will never be found. Maybe sometime in the future some debri will be found washed up on a beach somewhere but that's it.

I personally think if even the worst case scenario in the hijack plan was that the plane goes down in the ocean and nothing is ever found.

Look around. I think one of the most palpable definitions of terror has come to pass.

The more we hear about the pilot,seems he came a little unglued lately. If this was planned, there is some hope. If this was improvised on the fly, probably not. Either way...if this plane just showed up somewhere in another country, some one will talk. Even the remotest backwater in Pakistan has people that heard about this. There's no way to control 200 angry people outside the plane. Its probably crashed somewhere and we'll never understand it.

I think it's in a hanger.

no, it looks like it is out on the tarmac:


Boeing 777-300

That is just wrong, on so many levels.

India's military said there is no way the plane came though their airspace.

I'm guess that 70% of their resources are focused on Pakistan, 20% on Sri Lanka and that leaves 10% for a whole lot of everything else.

I will bet you a beer, or a good dark Ale it is on the hard,
And like said The USA knows where. just wants to let it be for a min.
There could be a 100 good reasons even with the looser in charge .

I know I'm not supposed to laugh, but thats pretty funny.

What kind of airline pilot would have a simulator in his house? Seems kind of strange to me....

If that plane resumes pinging, things will get pretty frantic really quick.

There are some very insightful opinions/posts and then there is the Shiite below...How much alcohol does one need to consume to type this mess? Thanks for the lulz...

The clues are pointing to the captain even more, now that we learn his entire familly moved out of the house the day before the plane disappeared...

I bet it will have fighter escorts very quickly...

I get on a 777-200ER in about 9 hrs. Let's hope they decide to keep the transponder on... Or that thing will be lite up like a christmas tree.

If this is a suicide this is how it could play out.
Extra pilot the cruise pilot goes back to have a snooze.
Captain locks the door.
Captain being big and suicidal overpowers and kills copilot.
He shuts off the transponder, pulls circuit breakers to transponder and other related comm. stuff.
He puts his O2 mask on.
He depressurizes the aircraft slowly.
Everybody in the back become unconscious.
Captain pushes nose over towards the ocean.
This is one possible outcome. Scary stuff.
G.:eek: