What was the title if you recall

Well that's why there are co-pilots.

as the article noted, tho, the pilot flying the plain was in training. if the lead pilot wanted to, he could just have ordered the co-pilot to go check the muffler bearings. then the cabin is empty, and pilot bolts the door, done. the author also recounted a fairly recent case when that's exactly what happened.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I know, didn't realise it was that easy..

re MH370 - I guess pilot suicide is the likely scenario, you can't forget the 3 very credible source that all identified a large airliner on fire at the right time and location. Still, you can't get the fire scenario to marry up with before and after activities i.e the pilot signs off and 2mins later the plane has become incapacitated due to fire? Then the plane is flown manually hours later.. the only scenario that works is pilot suicide. But what a mad, convoluted way to go....

It was in the Atlantic--not sure if you can find it for free or need to do a subscription. Quick google brought up this--guess the 3 articles turned into a book:

https://www.npr.org/...urage-at-ground-zero

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"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." John Rogers

Yeah, I didn't say that the co-pilot system couldn't be defeated. Just that it's the current practice to avoid having every life subject to a single personality.

After 9/11 there was talk of implementing a system of remote cockpit lockout. E.g. in the event of a hijack or pilot suicide, dis-engage the controls and fly the plane remotely. Not implemented, though. And it'd be really hard to completely lock out all flight controls. Impossible for some planes still flying which aren't fully fly-by-wire.

3/4 of the way down the page. I've read a couple of his other articles too; he certainly lives a very interesting life:
https://www.theatlantic.com/...illiam-langewiesche/

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"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." John Rogers

Yeah, I also think that a "wistful" (??) relationship and a few not-replied-to social media posts as evidence of personal issues is pretty weak.

Though the simulated route is compelling. (though I'd like to see a plot of the simulated route vs. real one - the article was fairly vague).

did you read the gladwell book - outliers, or whichever it was - that focused on the south korea airline crashes? and what he found was that the culture of deference was the thing that brought those planes down (along with the other 3 or 4 things that all have to go wrong at the same time to cause a disaster of that magnitude). the copilot's failure to challenge the pilot's preeminence, that was a contributor to its problems.

basically, i don't care if you're the national airline of bahrain, mongolia, uruguay or namibia. what i require to board the plane is a fairly modern fleet, and a crew of westernized (preferably american) pilots. highly trained uppity assholes who don't give a shit about rank or religion. we have had a few too many cases over the past 2 decades of pilots either committing mass murder or spectating as their superiors in the cockpit committed mass murder or made some monumentally and fatally stupid error.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

There isn't much evidence. The simulated route is compelling.

But I find the section trying to cast him as "troubled" to be really forced. "There is a strong suspicion among investigators in the aviation and intelligence communities that he was clinically depressed." Ah, so we have aviation investigators making clinical diagnoses. Right. And the "wistful" relationship and social media posts seem to be awfully weak evidence to me.

I think this is one place where the article "tried too hard."

It's a good theory. Maybe the best theory. But it's still just a theory.

I agree...except I believe a famous, recent pilot suicide was a fully "westernized" German. So I'm not nearly as confidence as you that being American/Western is a sure-fire indication of human reliability.

I agree, and thought the journalist would have done more digging into the pilot's life. But the official version of the pilot also seems off base. I guess that's why the article suggests the real story lies in KL.

yeah. but it's also clear he had a pretty well established, known, or knowable, history of depression. so it's not just westernized. this also touches on the culture of deference, whether deference to a person in the cockpit or deference to a process. there's a certain point where you don't have any civil rights, and one of those points is when you're an airline pilot. like senate confirmation. is there an ongoing mental health assessment process? failing that, what is the cockpit protocol?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The Malaysians don’t have a reputation as a culture of deference (say like Japan) so I don’t really think this is the case .. also, some of the best airlines in the world (in terms of their fleet and service) are not from the US (actually is known to have some of the worst customer service in the world) or Europe but from the Middle East and Asia - Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, etc. I have flown on many carriers and the difference btwn them and the American ones are very obvious to the point that I will avoid flying on US carriers.

http://www.traveller.com.au/...kytrax-awards-h1fhx4

I also don’t think the argument about his life problems are completely compelling.

Here’s another angle:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/...0-pilot-of-hijacking

A person’s emotional state is speculative unless the person has been forthright about it .. To me this article proposes a theory with speculative info about the pilot’s emotional state. It’s strength is the evidence re technology, maps, etc. Two questions I had were:

1. Could the plane change course so drastically due to mechanical error or malfunction?
2. Could a mechanical quirk have re/connected the plane back onto the Inmarsat satellites?

The answers to those 2 questions would tell me if it’s possible for catastrophic mechanical failure or pilot suicide (if the two can only be manually controlled).

Agree that this is an excellent piece of writing - I didn’t really care for the Gibson person and a 1k words or so could have been omitted. But I’ve always liked the Atlantic for their in-depth articles.

It is really hard for me to get around the flight simulator link. That he had this basic random flight path programmed into his simulator at home.

Otherwise there there is just not much being brought forth on his mental state. There are ass-tons of depressed people in the world that are having spouse issues.

It's a whole level of exponential crazy (not depression) to leap from that to killing a plane full of innocent people.

I guess, but then most suicidally depressed folks don't have the means to go out in such an immortal fashion; i.e., creating a lasting worldwide media event for an epitaph. And I obviously don't really know, but trying to put myself in his place ~ if I were that far around the bend mentally as to be ready to end it all, why would I give a shit about all the passengers & crew being killed? I mean, I'll be dead anyway, so it's not like I'll be having to carry that burden around on my conscience...

Again just speculating, but maybe killing all those people really didn't factor into his motivation, but it was simply a necessary collateral step to ensure that the rest of his suicide mission was able to proceed without interference? I mean, if a certain twisted sense of immortality was his goal, then he certainly accomplished it. Everybody loves a good mystery, right? Philosophically, it's like an extreme inversion of the proverbial tree falling in the forest ~ in this case, if a plane falls into the ocean but nobody is around to see it, people will become MORE invested than if it simply crashed on land or close enough to be found where the wreckage can be salvaged and analyzed; once the riddle is solved & it's all done, people move on, yet here we are still captivated by this one 5 years later.

I also don’t think the argument about his life problems are completely compelling. //

But what about all those people presumably killed by asphyxiating them?? I mean if it were something where they were all still alive all those hours, wouldn't there be a ton of cell phone calls made all along that journey? They could track that I presume, even it they dont go though, they would hit some cell tower in all that time, wouldn't they? Just seems the level of sophistication of the take over had to either be the pilot, or some other pilot with all that knowledge. Occam's razor seems to apply here...

In short, no. Yellow is the speculative actual flight path. Red is the simulated path in question.

Once these paths turn south towards the equator, there's nothing. You'd need a satellite phone.

Ok, I really dont know what happens when a call or text goes into a phone on a plane, I thought the newer ones had internet capabilities, is that wrong? I mean, internet, phone call, text, all the same. Would none of those have gotten out at any point along either paths over all those hours, provided they were alive during them? Maybe one day we will find the plane wreckage, and perhaps a phone chip will still be readable. At any rate, a true mystery. I feel like they are on the right track here, just hard to believe someone with all of the pilots abilities, somehow took the spot of two guys, behind locked doors.

But plenty of scenarios to fill in the blanks for that for sure, just not as probable as the one staring us in the face..

If the plane were found, doesn't that make the cell phone records irrelevant? I mean, if we get cell phone records first, then we could theoretically find the plane. And isn't that (finding the plane) the ultimate goal?

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

No, it's not wrong. But your cell phone has to be within around 50 miles of a tower. Maybe 100 miles if super lucky. So once you're 100 miles over open ocean it goes completely dark.

Flying over land is different. You can frequently pick up towers that you're flying over.

That's going through the internet, so you'd have to use WhatsApp to make a call.

What a wild read.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Phone, internet and text (inc what’s app) on a smart phone rely on connection to cell phone / mobile towers. They’ve also got a GPS chip but that helps pinpoint your location in apps like google maps .. accuracy goes way off when it’s not connected to a tower.

Satellite phones (different to a cell phone) rely on the satellites that orbit around the earth ... so both are very different technology. These phones are more reliable when you’re making a call from a remote location.

If ppl did make calls or texts when flying over land then yes they could roam to connect to the local tower and it’s possible. If the plane is in the middle of the ocean there would be no connection to the towers. So no cell phone call or text is possible.

Inmarsat is a satellite system hence it was able to handshake the plane to the end ...

How stuff works - https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/.../satellite-phone.htm

If the plane were found, doesn't that make the cell phone records irrelevant? I mean, if we get cell phone records first, then we could theoretically find the plane. And isn't that (finding the plane) the ultimate goal? //

I think some of you misunderstood what I was asking. I was not thinking about finding the plane, or even plotting its path. I was just going to the theory that everyone on board was killed very quickly, very early once it dropped out. If there was a ping, or internet text or whatever a couple hours in or more, then that would dispel that part of the theory. What I was thinking, was that the absence of any type of communication, going through or not, would have lead them to this part of the story. And even if nothing could get through, even the planes internet, might not there have been a couple folks with sat phones on board? I'm sure the investigators have been able to surmise if anyone had one of those, and it that was not used, would certainly support the suffocation theory of the entire cabin..I'm only thinking about this one point, and agree that is probably what happened.


And this goes to the level of knowledge the perp had to have, thus still pointing to the pilot..If they ever find a chip and a call was made 3+ hours later, then that theory is a little less probably. I kind of hope it is true, holding all those people hostage for all those hours, knowing they are probably going to die, well that is not the way I would have wanted to go that day..Falling asleep peacefully until you no longer can breath, that is what I would like to believe happened. And makes sense for the person doing this, neutralize any and all threats quickly, then get on with your business..