<p>“I also think it is odd that the pilot’s wife or other family members have not been more vocal in defending his reputation. This is more telling than anything else. I would think they would be irate if all this speculations was totally baseless”</p>
<p>Hard to tell about this. Maybe they’re being sheltered from the press. I did hear a pilot from Portland (?) that knew the captain, who said absolutely no way would he do anything like this purposefully. He sounded really upset.</p>
<p>Yes, have read that the friends of the pilot are convinced he would NEVER be involved in anything purposefully harmful. Am glad that the family of the pilot appear to have avoided the glare of the press, especially since I believe he had 3 young kids. It’s all rumor and crazy speculation until anything solid is found and so hurtful for people who are wrongly accused.</p>
<p>I thought I heard mention that no one has heard any pings from the black box. In other words, since the pings are activated upon submersion in fresh or salt water, it could be assumed the plane is on land. This point is not being stressed in the news. I just heard it in passing several days ago. Has anyone else heard this?</p>
<p>The black box signal isn’t super powerful, since they generally have a defined zone they’re searching in. It only signals for about 30 days, however, so they don’t have long to find it before it stops signaling altogether.</p>
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<p>I don’t think this is fair. People grieve in different ways. If I had a missing SO or family member in this situation, I’d likely be staying as far away from media as possible. I’m one of those people that is very affected by what others say- especially anonymously. For all we know, she just can’t cope with dealing with people dragging her husband’s name through the mud on TOP of not knowing where he is. It says NOTHING about him or her. </p>
<p>And she lost her husband too. And she may not know what her husband did, why bother to defend? And what can the authority do to her husband? Send him to jail?</p>
<p>People speculate too much.</p>
<p>Did I read they have found some possible debris 1000 miles southwest of Australia? That seems VERY far from the flight path. Sea currents?</p>
<p>1500 miles off the coast and likely due to the current. The area where they think the plane crashed is further to the north. </p>
<p>The transcript of the communications between the flight crew and ATC from the time they took off from KUL to the " alright goodnight" was leaked to someone at The Telegraph I didn’read anything which would indicate anything was amiss. Would love to hear Busdrivers opinion. </p>
<p><a href=“The final 54 minutes of communication from MH370”>The final 54 minutes of communication from MH370;
<p>How could the airplane wing float? It’s not made of wood and its inside pockets are not waterproof.</p>
<p>As far as the communications, there is nothing that shows any distress or secret message. The translation, however, has to be screwed up. Apparently it was spoken in English, translated to Malaysian, and translated back again. All communications sound weird from both the ATC controller and the pilot. They need to release the English version, where instead of saying things like, “remaining in flight altitude 350”, they were probably saying, “maintain flight level 350.” It’s all obviously coming across incorrect because of the translation. Even so, I see nothing weird at all.</p>
<p>I was listening to CNN, and the “experts” were trying to say that maybe the copilot was trying to pass on a secret message by signing off saying, “Alright, goodnight,” instead of the more standardized, “120.9, Malaysian 370, Good night.” Big whoop, some people are more casual than others. They might be tired. I am extremely standardized, not everyone else is. Or they took six minutes to repeat that they were maintaining flight level 350. Probably an error in the transcript. They really need to go back to the English version, but there are no hints that anything might be wrong except perhaps fatigue. I guess if the cabin altitude was climbing slowly they might have delayed reactions, but definitely not anything pointing to a hijacking going on, or a “secret” message.</p>
<p>The wings of a 777 are fiber composite.
I don’t know why they couldn’t float.</p>
<p>US “experts” are wondering why the world see Americans as obnoxious twits. A former FBI Boss claiming its office would have solved the riddle had they gotten access to the data. He used the capture of the Boston Bombers as an example. </p>
<p>Yeah, just like the Boston police and the FBI knew how to establish a search perimeter. The killer was a quarter of a mile from he fled from the police. And the search area was all wrong. Without dumb luck, they might have missed him. What a reference! </p>
<p>The CNN coverage is getting downright moronic.</p>
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<p>Agreed on the big whoop. This is an MH pilot flying out of KL, so he had probably spoken to this particular controller hundreds of times over his career, and undoubtedly both were comfortable with this hand-off.</p>
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<p>English to Mandarin to English, at least that’s what I heard on CNN.</p>
<p>Well H tells me that despite website info 777 wings are not composite, still may be buoyant depending on damage. </p>
<p>I agree, skieurope, Mandarin. I don’t know why I wrote Malasian. Can’t blame it on autocorrect.</p>
<p>@busdriver,
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<p>The pilots were speaking in English. English is widely spoken in Malaysia (it was a British colony up to WWII), albeit w a Malaysianized vocabulary, just like the Singaporeans speak English with a Singaporeanized vocabulary. </p>
<p>It wouldn’t have been Mandarin because the pilots were not ethnic Chinese; they were ethnic Malay: Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah and F.O. Fariq Abdul Hamid. </p>
<p>The report I read (who knows, maybe it reported incorrectly) says that the communication was in English, translated to Mandarin, and back to English. I don’t think it is relevant that the pilots were Malaysian, all that matters is who translated it. If the Zimbabweens(?) had translated it, it could have been in Ndebele, and translated back to English. Perhaps it was the Chinese who translated it, I have no idea.</p>
<p>The Malayasia gov’t is saying the transcript is incorrect.
<a href=“http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-update-29-missing-mh370-font-reported-transcript-inaccurate-says-dca-1.526976”>http://www.nst.com.my/latest/font-color-red-update-29-missing-mh370-font-reported-transcript-inaccurate-says-dca-1.526976</a>
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<p>Seems like they got it in a roundabout way through a Chinese intermediary if the conversations were in English, translated to Mandarin Chinese for some reason, then translated back to English.</p>
<p>As it doesn’t appear there was anything particularly interesting in the transcript, it seems another dead end. </p>