Malaysia: Kazakhstan joins search for missing jet

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia says searches have begun in both the northern and southern corridors of a vast swath of Asia where the missing Malaysia Airlines jet is believed to have ended up.

Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein says that Kazakhstan joined the search Monday in the farthest northwest section of the search area. Earlier Monday, Australia said was taking the lead in searching over the southern Indian Ocean.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 with 239 people aboard went missing March 8 en route to Beijing. Investigators say it was deliberately diverted.

Malaysian authorities say satellite data shows the plane sent a signal about 7 1/2 hours after takeoff - shortly before it would have run out of fuel - from somewhere on a huge arc stretching from Kazakhstan to the southern Indian Ocean.



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140317/DACJCCUG2.html

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A Chinese girl is taken a picture in front of an electronic display showing the weather information of the cities in Asia at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, in Sepang, Malaysia, Monday, March 17, 2014. When someone at the controls calmly said the last words heard from the missing Malaysian jetliner, one of the Boeing 777's communications systems had already been disabled, adding to suspicions that one or both of the pilots were involved in the disappearance of the flight. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

[PATRICK]

1. If the plane landed

on a makeshift or obscure landing strip(could they make one sufficiently safe for a Boeing??) they would likely not have gone too many hours and risk being detected, especially over land even if sparsely inhabited. Rousing the hornet's nest and chaos of all the surrounding governments could be very clever, but you have to cut the clues short. Maybe they were hoping that the searchers would have missed the clues of it being a hijacking too but they likely on an operation this big and risky would have figured that might well happen.

Still sounds to me like kidnapping and this is all in the expertise domain of one of the plane crew. Unless we getting fudged info still from the releases it seems to be pointing to a clever hiding and I suppose a clever way to get the money and escape.

[cosmicone]

2. There ain't no way the plane reached Kazakstan

For that to happen, the plane would have had to fly over Indian and Chinese airspaces that have heavy radar activity. Indians and Chinese frequently scramble fighter jets in response to any unidentified and radio-silent object which sometimes turns out as innocuous as a weather balloon.

The plane probably landed in Bangladesh or Myanmar and is probably going to be used in a 9/11 style attack somewhere in India, Myanmar or China.

[Zorra]

3. Here's my best case scenario:

Jet was hijacked to Afghanistan, and everyone on board is fine.

Afghan tribal leaders demand the US pull out of Afghanistan immediately, and say that after the US military leaves, they will release the plane and all hostages, unharmed.

US accedes to their demands, the war is over, the hostages are freed, everybody sings Kumbaya.

Please, don't rain on my parade here; everyone has a right to dream good things.