Malaysian passenger jet missing
 

In route to Beijing with 239 on board. Doesn't look good. No mayday or distress calls were made prior to loss of radar contact.
Sounds like a sudden decompression catastrophic sort of failure. The Boeing 777 has an excellent safety record. Sounds like a bomb or a missile strike, but that's only my speculation. Four on board were Americans.
Rip to all on board.

It went down off the Vietnam coast - sad story.
Me and my family were almost in an air disaster, and it's still the scariest thing I've ever experienced in my life.
Mid flight - our plane began to just fall out of the sky, we were plummeting for about 15 seconds before the pilots regained control.
I was about 9-10 yrs old.

An interesting turn of events
 

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/mis...als-say-n47861

I've had two different experiences of "close calls."

First was an aborted landing at LAX where we were fairly close to touch down but ascended rapidly for a go around and eventual landing due to another plane in the wrong place on the runway at the wrong time. How close we came to a disaster was never clear to me.

The second was on descent into Portland, OR. As the plane broke through the bottom of a cloud deck, the proximity RADAR picked up a small plane within a couple of miles. The pilot did a quick climb which took us back above the layer of clouds to then redo the approach. I got the details from the pilots after the deboarding of most of the passengers and I was able to talk with either the pilot or co-pilot. I was told we were not is any real danger considering the vectors but they were surprised by the sudden alarm and automatically followed their training.

Bloomberg report about passports
 

Coincedence ?
 

North Korea Missiles Passed Near Chinese Passenger Jet

Tuesday Volley Flew Above Airliner's Route Just Minutes Ahead of Plane



http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...20623335971350

TWA crash in 1996 - again?

There were many Chinese citizens on this flight.
If this was a terrorist operation then they are going to have to deal with China, and whatever their response will be.

I would expect some serious measures from the Chinese.

TWA Flight 800 crash was traced to an electrical short in one of it's fuel tanks. Many still believe a missile brought it down. Modifications were made to 747's following the findings. Although there were witnesses claiming to have seen what appeared to be a ground-to-air missile, the NSTB dismissed it upon it's later findings after gathering the wreckage. What witnesses observed was burning fuel and wreckage falling from the plane, they say.

Ya, and they put on sun glasses then pulled what looked like a pen out of their pocket.

Any one hear if the NTSB has been invited to help?

Seems odd to go through the trouble of a terrorist attack, and in the end, nobody knows what the heck happened to the plane.

Terrorists usually want the world to know it was actually terrorism. So blowing it up in the middle of nowhere tends to be pretty ineffective.

Thus, I don't think this was terrorism. But that's just my gut talking.

Will be awhile before we really know what happened.
Unless some faction steps forward and claims responsibility. :eek:

the worst thing i ever knew of was a friend of my mother's waiting for Pan Am flight 103 for her husband that got bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland. that was a terrorist attack.

i have to admit that with all the turmoil in the world, both Bush and Obama have done a great job protecting us.

Even if they discover it's terrorism, there is no guarantee that news finds the light of day.

On the other hand, if it happens shortly after takeoff or on landing, in front of everyone in a major city, it becomes harder to cover up...then again, I've become cynical enough to believe we are only told whether it is terrorism or not terrorism only when it suits "their" agenda.