Malaysia Airlines Flight 370

(21-03-2014 13:02 )alien lifeform Wrote:  At today's press conference it was conceded that lithium batteries could become unstable at altitude and could result in a fire breaking out.

But surely as soon as they were aware of the fire the pilots would have issued a mayday? If a fire started in the cargo hold it wouldn't have knocked everything out on the plane that quickly?

has it ever been proven that lithium batteries are unstable at altitude?

(21-03-2014 11:19 )space watson Wrote:  Ukraine's gold reserves were moved to Kiev airport and flown out of the country on the night of 6-7 March. The US have acknowledged that they are now in possession of $7 billion of Ukraine gold for safe keeping, but Ukraine's gold reserves stood at $10 billion, which gives the impression that China's request for $3 billion of the gold has been met.

I don't see any connection to MH370 in your story. Besides wouldn't gold be moved with appropriate security, i.e. by a military plane? I can't see a huge quantity of gold being shipped to China on a civilian airliner.

(21-03-2014 16:19 )elgar1uk Wrote:  If a fire started in the cargo hold it wouldn't have knocked everything out on the plane that quickly?

It wouldn't have to knock everything out. Once the pilots were aware of an electrical fire they would immediately shut the power off, which is why the plane's transponder and its reporting system both stopped transmitting.

A new witness has emerged, a Malaysian woman says she spotted the plane floating on the Indian Ocean the very same day it went missing. At the time she was unaware that a flight had been lost, but when she landed and learned about Flight 370 she reported her sighting to the police, indicating the location as the Andaman Islands.

(21-03-2014 21:55 )southlondonphil Wrote:  she spotted the plane floating on the Indian Ocean..........she was unaware that a flight had been lost

So what did she think it was doing there?

A few days ago it was revealed that the pilot made a call from his mobile phone just before the plane took off. This call made from the cockpit struck me as potentially a vital piece of evidence, but it seems to have unaccountably slipped out of the news. Has anyone heard anymore about this?

(21-03-2014 14:12 )Robert E Lee Wrote:  Weird to say the least. Either they can't be bothered with the matter, maybe with the current Ukraine-Russia turmoil keeping their attention, or is it a sign they know something and don't wish to share the information.

One of the Ukrainians appears to be secret service, perhaps both of them. I found Oleg Chustrak on pipl.com described as "military/secret service". The passenger listed as Russian, Nikolai Brodskii, looks to actually be another Ukranian but is living in Russia (and presumably has a Russian passport?) If all 3 are secret service agents it may explain the lack of response by Ukraine and Russia to the request for passenger background checks.

(21-03-2014 13:22 )Tumble_Drier Wrote:  Simple answer. Microsoft Flight Simulator has something like 24,000 runways in it. Diego Garcia is one of them.

That is a good answer. But on the other hand it should be mentioned also that according to the Malaysian cops Diego Garcia was found to be 1 of the 5 most used airports when they examined the pilot's simulator.

(21-03-2014 21:10 )alien lifeform Wrote:  Once the pilots were aware of an electrical fire they would immediately shut the power off, which is why the plane's transponder and its reporting system both stopped transmitting.

But they would have still issued a mayday, because it's been posted before in this thread that the radio has an automatic battery back up. In the event of a loss of power the radio would still be fully functional.