As the search for Malaysia Airlines missing Boeing
777 moves into its 11th day, a multitude of
theories about the plane's fate are circulating on
forums and social media. Here, former pilots and
aviation experts look at some of those theories.
Malaysia's government says the plane - with 239
people on board - was intentionally diverted and
could have flown on either a northern or southern
arc from its last known position.
The country's Department of Civil Aviation has
stated that "pings" were picked up from the plane
six hours after military radar last detected it over
the Strait of Malacca at 02:15 on 8 March.
1. Landed in the Andaman Islands
The plane was apparently at one stage heading in
the direction of India's Andaman and Nicobar
Islands, the most easterly part of Indian territory,
which lies between Indonesia and the coast of
Thailand and Burma. It has been reported that
military radar there might not even have been
operating, as the threat level is generally perceived
to be low.
The editor of the islands' Andaman Chronicle
newspaper dismisses the notion that the aircraft
could be there. There are four airstrips but planes
landing would be spotted, he told CNN. He also
believed monitoring by the Indian military would
prevent an airliner being able to land there
unnoticed. But this is an isolated spot. There are
more than 570 islands, only 36 of which are
inhabited. If the plane had been stolen, this might
be the best place to land it secretly, says Steve
Buzdygan, a former BA 777 pilot. It would be
difficult, but not impossible, to land on the beach,
he says. At least 5,000ft (1500m) or so would
make a long enough strip to land on.
It would be theoretically possible but extremely
difficult. With such a heavy aeroplane, using the
landing gear might lead to the wheels digging into
the sand and sections of undercarriage being
ripped off. "If I was landing on a beach I would
keep the wheels up," says Buzdygan. But in this
type of crash landing, the danger would also be
damage to the wings, which are full of fuel,
causing an explosion. Even if landed safely, it is
unlikely the plane would be able to take off again.
2. Flew to Kazakhstan
The Central Asian republic is at the far end of the
northern search corridor, so the plane could
hypothetically have landed there. Light aircraft pilot
Sylvia Wrigley, author of Why Planes Crash, says
landing in a desert might be possible and certainly
more likely than landing on a beach somewhere.
"To pull this off, you are looking at landing in an
incredibly isolated area," says Wrigley. The failure
so far to release a cargo manifest has created wild
rumours about a valuable load that could be a
motive for hijacking. There has also been
speculation that some of those on board were
billionaires.
But the plane would have been detected, the
Kazakh Civil Aviation Committee said in a detailed
statement sent to Reuters. And there's an even
more obvious problem. The plane would have had
to cross the airspace of countries like India,
Pakistan and Afghanistan, which are all usually in a
high state of military preparedness. But it's just
possible that there are weak links in the radar
systems of some of the countries en route to
Central Asia, Wrigley speculates. "A lot of air traffic
control gear is old. They might be used to getting
false positives from flocks of birds and, therefore, it
would be easy to discount it."
3. It flew south
The final satellite "ping" suggests the plane was
still operational for at least five or six hours after
leaving Malaysian radar range. For Norman
Shanks, former head of group security at airports
group BAA, and professor of aviation security at
Coventry University, the search should therefore
start from the extremes of the corridors and work
up, rather than the other way around. He thinks
the southern corridor is more likely for a plane
that has so far avoided detection by radar.
The southern arc leads to the huge open spaces of
the Indian Ocean, and then to Australia's empty
northern hinterland. Without knowing the motive, it
is hard to speculate where the plane's final
destination was intended to be. But the plane may
just have carried on until it ran out of fuel and then
glided and crashed into the sea somewhere north
of Australia.
4. Taklamakan Desert, north-west China
There has been speculation on forums that the
plane could have been commandeered by China's
Uighur Muslim separatists. Out of the plane's 239
passengers, 153 were Chinese citizens. One
possible destination in this theory would be
China's Taklamakan Desert. The region - described
by Encyclopaedia Britannica as a "great desert of
Central Asia and one of the largest sandy deserts
in the world" - has no shortage of space far from
prying eyes. The BBC's Jonah Fisher tweeted on
15 March: "Being briefed by Malaysia officials they
believe most likely location for MH370 is on land
somewhere near Chinese/Kyrgyz border."
But again, this theory rests on an extraordinary
run through the radar systems of several
countries.
5. It was flown towards Langkawi island
because of a fire or other malfunction
The loss of transponders and communications
could be explained by a fire, aviation blogger Chris
Goodfellow has suggested. The left turn that the
plane made, deviating from the route to Beijing,
could have been a bid to reach safety, he argues.
"This pilot did all the right things. He was
confronted by some major event onboard that
made him make that immediate turn back to the
closest safe airport." He aimed to avoid crashing
into a city or high ridges, Goodfellow argues .
"Actually he was taking a direct route to Palau
Langkawi, a 13,000ft (4,000m) strip with an
approach over water at night with no obstacles. He
did not turn back to Kuala Lumpur because he
knew he had 8,000ft ridges to cross. He knew the
terrain was friendlier towards Langkawi and also a
shorter distance." In this theory it would be
assumed that the airliner did not make it to
Langkawi and crashed into the sea.
But Goodfellow's theory has been disputed. If the
course was changed during a major emergency,
one might expect it to be done using manual
control. But the left turn was the result of someone
in the cockpit typing "seven or eight keystrokes
into a computer on a knee-high pedestal between
the captain and the first officer, according to
officials", the New York Times reported . The paper
says this "has reinforced the belief of investigators
- first voiced by Malaysian officials - that the plane
was deliberately diverted and that foul play was
involved."
6. The plane is in Pakistan
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has tweeted: "World
seems transfixed by 777 disappearance. Maybe no
crash but stolen, effectively hidden, perhaps in
northern Pakistan, like Bin Laden." But Pakistan
has strenuously denied that this would be
possible. The country's assistant to the prime
minister on aviation, Shujaat Azeem, has been
reported as saying: "Pakistan's civil aviation
radars never spotted this jet, so how it could be
hidden somewhere in Pakistan?" Like the
Kazakhstan theory, this all seems far-fetched, not
least because the junction between Indian and
Pakistani air space is one of the most watched
sectors in the world by military radar. And despite
the remoteness and lawlessness of northern
Pakistan, the region is watched closely by
satellites and drones. It seems scarcely believable
to think an airliner could get there unspotted.
7. The plane hid in the shadow of another
airliner
Aviation blogger Keith Ledgerwood believes the
missing plane hid in the radar shadow of
Singapore Airlines flight 68. The Singaporean
airliner was in the same vicinity as the Malaysian
plane, he argues . "It became apparent as I
inspected SIA68's flight path history that MH370
had manoeuvred itself directly behind SIA68 at
approximately 18:00UTC and over the next 15
minutes had been following SIA68." He believes
that the Singaporean airliner would have disguised
the missing plane from radar controllers on the
ground. "It is my belief that MH370 likely flew in
the shadow of SIA68 through India and Afghanistan
airspace. As MH370 was flying 'dark' without a
transponder, SIA68 would have had no knowledge
that MH370 was anywhere around, and as it
entered Indian airspace, it would have shown up
as one single blip on the radar with only the
transponder information of SIA68 lighting up ATC
and military radar screens." The Singapore Airlines
plane flew on to Spain. The Malaysian jet could
have branched off. "There are several locations
along the flight path of SIA68 where it could have
easily broken contact and flown and landed in
Xinjiang, Kyrgyzstan, or Turkmenistan,"
Ledgerwood argues.
Prof Hugh Griffiths, radar expert at University
College London, says it sounds feasible. But there
is a difference between military and civilian radar.
Civilian radar works by means of a transponder
carried by the aircraft - a system known as
secondary radar. The military use primary radar
and this "ought to be higher resolution". So how
close would the two planes need to be? He
estimates about 1000m (3300ft). It is possible
military radar would be able to pick up that there
were two objects, he says. "It might be able to tell
the difference, to know that there are two targets."
If this happens, though, there's then the question
of how this is interpreted on the ground. Is it a
strange echo that would be discounted? When the
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, although
the US radar operator detected the incoming
aircraft, they were dismissed as US bombers
arriving from the mainland.
8. There was a struggle
One of the hardest things to account for so far
with an innocent explanation is the way the plane
was flown erratically. It went far above its "ceiling",
flying at 45,000ft (13,716m) before later flying very
low. Big fluctuations in altitude suggest there
might have been a struggle, says Buzdygan.
Post-9/11, cockpit doors have been strengthened
against the possibility of hijack but there are still
scenarios where access could be gained. Pilots
talk to each other "over a beer" about how they'd
deal with hijackers, he says. Buzdygan would have
had no qualms about flying aggressively to try to
resist a hijack. "I'd try to disorientate and confuse
the hijackers by throwing them around," he says.
9. The passengers were deliberately killed
by decompression
Another theory circulating is that the plane was
taken up to 45,000ft to kill the passengers quickly,
former RAF navigator Sean Maffett says. The
supposed motive for this might have been
primarily to stop the passengers using mobile
phones, once the plane descended to a much
lower altitude. At 45,000ft, the Boeing 777 is way
above its normal operating height. And it is
possible to depressurise the cabin, notes Maffett.
Oxygen masks would automatically deploy. They
would run out after 12-15 minutes. The
passengers - as with carbon monoxide poisoning
- would slip into unconsciousness and die, he
argues. But whoever was in control of the plane
would also perish in this scenario, unless they had
access to some other form of oxygen supply.
10. The plane will take off again to be used
in a terrorist attack
One of the more outlandish theories is that the
plane has been stolen by terrorists to commit a
9/11 style atrocity. It has been landed safely,
hidden or camouflaged, will be refuelled and fitted
with a new transponder before taking off to attack
a city. It would be very hard to land a plane, hide
it and then take off again, Maffett suggested. But it
can't be ruled out. "We are now at stage where
very, very difficult things have to be considered as
all sensible options seem to have dropped off," he
says. It is not clear even whether a plane could be
refitted with a new transponder and given a totally
new identity in this way, he says. Others would say
that while it is just about feasible the plane could
be landed in secret, it is unlikely it would be in a
fit state to take off again.
The even more far-fetched
Many of the above theories might seem far-fetched
but there are even more outlandish-sounding ones
out there.
If the plane had flown up the northern corridor,
experts maintain it would probably have triggered
primary radar. Key countries whose airspace it
might have crossed are Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
India, China, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, or Thailand.
After 9/11, an unidentified airliner entering
sovereign airspace is likely to lead to fighters
being scrambled, says Maffett. "If the plane is in
the northern arc it could easily have been shot
down." It's a theory circulating on some forums.
The notion is that no-one would want to admit
shooting down an airliner full of passengers,
Maffett says, and thus might currently be
concealing the event.
But there are a host of holes in the theory. Firstly,
the plane would still have had to avoid numerous
radar systems before finally triggering one. And
the nation responsible would be trying to keep
secret the fate of the world's currently most-
searched for object. Covering up the incident for
so long would arguably make the shooting down
look far worse.
Then there are other conspiracy theories. Some
forum postings have pointed to the US military
base in the middle of the Indian Ocean, on the
tropical atoll of Diego Garcia. The island is owned
by the UK but leased to the US. One of the more
extreme theories circulating online claims that the
Kremlin believes that the US "captured" the plane
and flew it to its base. With a conspiracy theory of
this magnitude it is difficult even to know where to
start with the rebuttals.
A completely different thread of conspiracy theory
assumes a sympathetic regime. The scepticism
about flying undetected through radar changes
somewhat if the hijackers are in cahoots with a
country's government. There are several
authoritarian regimes within the aircraft's range,
but the conspiracy theory doesn't even require a
government's co-operation - the hijackers could
just be in cahoots with radar operators. Again, this
seems to be a conspiracy of incredible complexity
to be kept secret for this length of time. And what
would the motive be for those colluding?
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