Malaysian Airlines 777 with 239 Aboard Missing

Garamet knows what I'm referring to, but don't expect her to ever admit it publicly.

Careful now. Wormboy will classify this as "derp" and move it to the other thread.

garamet's right here. Why is Flashy afraid to address her directly?

She'd be happy to address your question if you were just a little braver.

I LOVE THIS TOWN!!

Yeah, my bad confusing Gul for Dayton, though beyond my misremembering who reflexively threw down the It-MUST-have-been-Terrorists™ card first, all other points still stand. That early on, with so few facts to go on (As yet, there not even confirmation of any wreckage!), idle speculation of any sort is just plain silly, and I thought Garamet's return volley illustrated the point quite nicely. YMMV.

What cracks me up about the thread-splitting is Wormboy's attitude. "Oh, I'm much too busy to split the thread myself. I'll let Paladin do my dirty work for me"...then he spends the rest of the night hocking you and others in the same thread.

Maybe this smiley needs a new name:

Yeah that was a bit rich........

Can someone post a TL;DR summary for those of us who want to learn of any developments concerning the missing flight, but don't want to gete soiled by all the infighting going on?

Uh, that's what CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, FOX, REUTERS are for. Do your own damn research.

Developments? There are none. Plane crashed. No one knows why. Some stolen passports are involved. No one has found debris yet. No one knows where the plane went down.

That's it.

Stop derailing this thread with DERP.

A likely possibility, but even that's still speculation at this point.

Then stop derailing the thread. No one should post anything but verified facts in this thread.

No, you stop derailing this thread by reminding everyone not to derail this thread.

So I guess "courage" and "The Flashlight" don't belong in the same sentence...

Also, is there such a thing as unverified facts?

Yes, they are what ANC bases most of his drivel on.

Yes, they are what ANC bases most of his drivel on.

"Tickets linked to stolen passports for missing Malaysia flight were purchased by Iranian man, authorities say." -- CNN www.cnn.com

Quiet, Canada!

This is a picture of a race car.

So, TWO derp threads, then.

And this is a picture of a race car on drugs.



Any questions?

This is pie.

So today I'm eating lunch and one of restaurant staff offered a theory:
maybe they were hijacked ,and all electronic distress and communications were either disabled or not used under the threat of blowing it up with all on board - or possibly a combination of the two. Then the bird landed safely at a secret airfield. The oil slicks were a short lived diversion BTW, prearranged by sea based members of the hijacking team. The passengers will be held for ransom, to be released piecemeal. Those not ransomed will be used for slave labor or killed as their usefulness is assessed.

A little unlikely, I think.

The airplane would have to avoid being tracked on radar to reach the "secret airfield." And where would such an airfield be? Assuming the plane had fuel for its anticipated flight and a reserve, Pakistan might be reachable, but probably not Iran. A 777's a big plane; you can't just land it some dirt strip cut out of the brush...

Yeah, it's not like a 777 can just land on a jungle airstrip normally used for gun running. They require a bit more space.

Human trafficking is a very big problem. But, this wouldn't be the "normal" style of abduction.

Apparently the mystery passengers were Iranian, as was the man, giving his name as a Mr Ali, who bought the tickets.

I wonder could the plane have been hijacked, had its transponders turned off and been secretly flown to Iran? It would have to detour around the bottom of India to avoid being detected, but with 7.5 hours worth of fuel on board it could make it (3,560 miles or so) at a standard cruising speed of 560 mph, with a little over an hour to spare.