MH 370? A former pilot from Florida has offered a different point of view on the disappearance of Flight MH370. In his conjecture, posted on Google Plus, Chris Goodfellow said the Malaysia Airlines plane, missing since March 8, might have caught fire (thereby disabling the transponders) and the pilot would have taken a left turn and must have tried to land the aircraft at the nearest runway -Pulau Langkawi - an archipelago in Malaysia. Here is his full explanation. MH370 A different point of view. Pulau Langkawi 13,000 runway. A lot of speculation about MH370. Terrorism, hijack, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN - almost disturbing. I tend to look for a more simple explanation of this event. Loaded 777 departs midnight from Kuala to Beijing. Hot night. Heavy aircraft. About an hour out across the gulf towards Vietnam the plane goes dark meaning the transponder goes off and secondary radar tracking goes off. Two days later we hear of reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar meaning the plane is being tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the straits of Malacca. When I heard this I immediately brought up Google Earth and I searched for airports in proximity to the track towards southwest. The left turn is the key here. This was a very experienced senior Captain with 18,000 hours. Maybe some of the younger pilots interviewed on CNN didnt pick up on this left turn. We old pilots were always drilled to always know the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us and airports ahead of us. Always in our head. Always. Because if something happens you dont want to e thinking what are you going to do -you already know what you are going to do. Instinctively when I saw that left turn with a direct heading I knew he was heading for an airport. Actually he was. a direct route to Palau Langkawi a 13,000 foot strip with an approach over water at night with no obstacles. He did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000 foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a shorter distance.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 17:31:10 +0000
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