UKC

A very interesting and plausible account of what may have happened to this flight, which disappeared in March 2014:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airline...

Interesting read, thanks for posting.

T.

I believe Leo Houlding had a ticket booked on that flight, but for some reason had to book a later flight last minute.

I think it was actually the MH17 flight that Leo had been booked on, not this one. Interesting read. 

As for the difficulty of backtracking to the accident site from the washed-up wreckage, this article makes an interesting point in that left-footed and right-footed trainers from the same container load washed up in different places because of the differences in their shapes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48464664

That's amazing!

The aviation version of “The butler did it”.

Just another theory to add to the pot I'm afraid.

Are you tempted by the hangar in Kazakhstan theory then?

To anyone who knows about planes - why is there a depressurisation control for the pilots? Do they have to depressurize manually as they descend?!

Interesting. There was a C4 or C5 documentary recently which also concluded that pilot suicide was the most likely explanation. If the suicide could be covered up successfully then no shame would be visited on the family. 

It's not so much a 'depressurisation control' as an environmental control which can be used to depressurise. Seems pedantic I know but you're there to manage the aircraft's systems, you need control of them. The degree to which they're automated and the default states... debatable.

Off the top of my head you might choose to shut down the pressurisation system to manually clear smoke, to prevent fumes from an engine/system problem entering the cabin or even to control a cabin/hold fire.

Thankfully what I fly has an on-off switch and not much more.

jk

Pressurisation is normally automatically controlled, but there is a manual override to increase/decrease cabin pressure by closing/opening the outflow valve. It's useful in the event the automatic system fails, removing smoke/attempting to inhibit a fire etc

This is a well-written article, but we should be clear that the theory that this was a deliberate act by the pilot has been well-aired from the very start.

Just another theory with a better argued case and more compelling evidence than most, surely?

Of course. But this puts together the trail in a way that early theories of pilot suicide could not. 

Definitely not!!

Bob I'm not sure that a 'well argued' case is necessarily the most compelling.  Just as a brief example, if the pilot was intent on suicide using his plane (as at least one other pilot has done!) why spend that long flying the plane around the ocean?  

As for the military radar?  Maybe the military did not want to disclose they did track it, simply because it would have disclosed the effectiveness or otherwise of their defence radar.

The author also claims the passengers all passed away peacefully.  I'm not sure that actually happens as simple as that.  I certainly know that pilots who suffer from hypoxia can and do act in irrational ways  and not as the author suggests perhaps showing his lack of knowledge.

As Rob P has said there have been other 'theories' involving the pilot and a similar number of stories to contradict those theories.

I know there are other theories but I haven't seen a more convincing one that's more clearly laid out and evidenced yet. 

As for William Langewiesche's lack of knowledge, check out his bio... 

I suspect that the line about passengers passing away peacefully was possibly put there for the comfort of the relatives - the reality may have been horribly different.

Reading this on a trans Atlantic flight to Oregon. 

Really interesting. Girlfriend isn’t enjoying me sharing the facts and theories with her though. 

How quickly people lose consciousness through hypoxia depends on what height the aircraft is at. Could be under thirty seconds. 

It can also return when they get low enough, though obviously his plan seems to have been to stay up long enough for death.

Hypoxia is quite lovely actually. Euphoric way to go if its quick onset.

youtube.com/watch?v=UN3W4d-5RPo&

I imagine the pleasure would be slightly offset by the sight of a panic-stricken co-pilot trying to batter down the cockpit door.

Did you click on it on this article and read any of his other pieces for the Atlantic? I just read his piece on the sinking of the Estonia. I think I've read it before a long time ago, but it is both gripping and really quite traumatic. I've spent a fair amount of time on Baltic ferries, and I still feel a bit horrible an hour after finishing reading it.

One of many questions, but I’ll start with this. 

If they found on his on his flight simulator that he had made that journey before, then why is there any question or theory of any outside actor whatsoever, or his intent.

If I had a driving simulator for a hobby and I made 100’s of routes around the U.K., then subsequently they find bits of my car floating in the sea below the cliffs Of Dover, and upon checking my car simulator I’d driven my car off the cliffs of Dover, there would me absolutely no question that it was an intentional suicidal act, let alone any nefarious outside actor. 

Seems like an open and close case. 

Not only was it found on his flight simulator, it was the only 'flight' they found that didn't end in a landing.

One of my colleagues was called in very soon after the disappearance, to assist Inmarsat in trying to extract a geolocation from the data they had. He suggested any doppler data they had might prove helpful... I don't think Inmarsat have ever publicly acknowledged the support provided. [edit: looks like they did: https://www.aerosociety.com/Assets/Docs/Events/Conferences/2016/813/Keynote... ]

I read the Libya B-2 raid piece. He's really good at combining fairly technical detail with a gripping narrative.

I read somewhere that the pilot had no engagements planned for after the flight/crash. His diary was blank from that day on.

This wasn't Germanwings. If anything he'd be reclined against a wall in the galley with only a few giggling or oblivious passengers to see. Very few, and usually no, passengers in a 777 can even see the cockpit door - it's no A320