Missing Malaysia plane flew at 5,000ft and used 'terrain masking' to avoid radar detection
Source: Telegraph, UK
The missing Malaysian Airlines plane reportedly flew as low as 5,000ft and used “terrain masking” to avoid radar detection for almost eight hours after it was apparently hijacked.
As dozens of nations continued to search for the plane, Malaysia’s New Straits Times newspaper reported that the Boeing 777 dropped to low altitude to avoid commercial radars.
Using a manoeuvre typically deployed by combat aircraft, the plane would have burnt far more fuel flying in the denser lower air.
Experts said a sharp drop in altitude – the plane was apparently flying as high as 45,000 feet - would have been noticeable for the passengers, but not deadly.
Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10702190/Missing-Malaysia-plane-flew-at-5000ft-and-used-terrain-masking-to-avoid-radar-detection.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
part, there isn't any, they flew it deliberately back over land just to make it more of a challenge?
I haven't seen anything the plane has done that can't be explained by sudden decompression at 35,000 feet, a hole the size of a door, perhaps, or cargo that blew. If the plane is breaking, and an experienced pilot (and these were experienced, and very good at what they did) got it turned and headed back (that would have been the quickest decision) and lost O2, (which has started more than one fire on board an aircraft, even a 777) everyone is loopy within 10 seconds, dead shortly thereafter, and the plane will just fly on the controls that were set (maybe autopilot if they were trying to fight a fire). Might have been a survivor or two that tried to do something, but no radio, probably no electricity by then, it just flew on and fell out in the Indian Ocean somewhere. A ghost ship.
Which we might find pieces of in the next few months, or not, and then the recovery of the black boxes which will probably take another year or two.
But maybe if we just believe, it will turn out to be pirates ... 
At 35,000 feet, as you said, you need supplemental pressurization and/or O2.
If that is lost, you have trouble. According to Linda Pendleton, author of Flying Jets and an experienced pilot and instructor and big jet trainer...
(Note: The page below here, has informative information about jets and physiology)
...
I am always amazed when I ask a class of experienced jet pilots undergoing recurrent training how many have been through the FAA's physiological training program. Usually less than half will have taken advantage of this valuable opportunity. We spend many hours in our carefully conditioned cockpits, only inches from an environment that is incompatible with life. We sit in shirtsleeves, comfortably oblivious to the frigid and rare atmosphere through which our fragile shell moves. Rarely do we think about the temperature outside or the time available to react should our carefully maintained environment fail
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A rapid decompression is one that occurs in more than one-half second, but less than about ten seconds. This is the type decompression experienced in larger-bodied aircraft and is the more common of the two.
...
Time of Useful Consciosness. The time of useful consciousness is the time your brain is awake enough to be useful and make decisions. This varies from almost indefinite at 10,000 to 9 to 12 seconds above 40,000 feet. An explosive or rapid decompression will cut this time in half due to the startle factor and the accelerated rate at which an adrenaline soaked body burns oxygen.
...
One should feel free to find her web site and argue with her facts.
AND
There is a lot of O2 in that concentrated space, and canisters full of it all around. What if there was a loose cable around those kept for the flight crew? An EgyptAir 777, in a fire CAUSED by their oxygen, burned on the runway after seating and then de-planing all of their passengers, AFTER a pilot emptied a fire extinguisher on it and with a fire department right there. Burned up part of the airport as well.
If anything like this happened on MH370 going to or at 35,000 feet they would just be dead.
AND
It has happened before, in Greece, at a LOWER altitude before they even got to 35,000 feet, which it did with all on board likely dead - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522
AND
Here's a simulation by a pilot in a trainer which shows exactly how it might have happened by accident
AND
If there was a fire, or damage from decompression, there can be electrical shorts and opens all over the place, cables that would control things damaged, etc. Any fire fed by the concentrated O2 would burn fiercely for a bit, then smolder, causing further damage.
And in this case everyone is dead already, so there is no human hand doing anything.
AND
While it may have NOT killed everyone, the passengers should be behind a locked and bolted security door which it should take explosives to get through.
If the pilots are incapacitated, how does one get to the controls?
We can't know if there was an Air Marshall on board, but did the pirate, Captain Hook or someone, take that person out first and then the pilots? Or was the Air Marshall reading the inflight magazines and didn't have time to draw his or her weapon? Or did they have a shoot out like the OK Corral and puncture the O2 bottles and the skin of the airplane and cause a small explosion?
...you might have a point.
If people are going with stories, then I think it was the 80 year old lady in 12C, with the only working O2 on board and her walker bombs. She had confederates that shut the valves on all the O2 bottles before takeoff, and used two shots from her walker bomb to put holes in the sides of the aircraft. When everyone was disabled she used the other two shots to get through the security door to the cockpit and turned the plane around to fly back over the island so they would know she did it, avoiding radar along the way, and then flew it into the ocean.
Makes as much sense as the officials at the airport who brought in a shaman to divine the location of the aircraft before they really started pushing on the pirate story while ransacking the pilot and co-pilot's homes.
I can't find a reason to go with the supernatural yet.
until it gets big enough, and can damage things before then as well as after it is discoverd. It's documented in accident archives.
People still making up ghosts
with a dead crew and passengers, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522.
Look at this simulation. He does it for a living and says it could happen.
Unless you have wings and bars on your commerical pilots uniform, I'll go with this fella, and this woman - jet pilot, commerical aviator, instructor:
http://www.avweb.com/news/aeromed/181893-1.html?redirected=1
And about a dozen more, but you can do your own homework
On the other hand, the authorities at the airport disagree. The same ones who called in this person to help them divine where the craft was.
I'm not much into religion, so I'll still hang with the commercial pilots opinion.
But once the fire flashed through the oxygen, it goes out. Decompression at 35000 feet leaves no more O2 to feed it with. All it has to do is burn a small section.
So it could easily have broken something, which cause overheating or perhaps an electrical issue that followed a little later. I can't imagine why people find it so difficult to think anything other than all the damage MUST have happened at once, else it must have been Captain Hook.
Especially people who, by and large, think Creationists are unique in being fooled by religion.
He pointed it toward a 13000 or 18000 foot runway (I forget) that prevents him from having to climb over mountains. the coordinates are in his head, automatic in case of emergency. He programs it, then dies or is disabled. I can't imagine why that is such a hard conclusion to reach. Pilots train that very simulation all the time.
And they in fact did think the simulator was suspicious, and they took it and re-assembled it to study it. It was reported as such, google it if you want. What it is today I don't care. Still fantasy, and they should have supported him instead of speculating that it was the pilot or co-pilot who died trying to save these people.
The officials are derelict in their duty to promote this crap. I can't imagine what kind of fucked up individual would want to beat up on the pilot and co-pilot without any evidence other than circumstance.
We'll see when they get the black box, if they get the black box, and if are still alive when they do. Might be a while.
at some point, not a manual turn. This suggests not a catastrophic event forcing immediate, rapid action. 
http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2014/03/18/malaysia-airlines-nyt-reporter-wald-newday.cnn&hpt=hp_t1&from_homepage=yes&video_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F#/video/bestoftv/2014/03/18/malaysia-airlines-nyt-reporter-wald-newday.cnn
would move as quickly as possible toward their nearest landing point, based on what you wrote earlier. Programming the computer would seem to take longer than simply manual steering, but I'm obviously not a pilot so what do I know?
Other news that has (re)surfaced today is that several people in the Maldives reported seeing a large plane fly low overhead and described colors similar to on this plane. Apparently they had reported this earlier on to their local official. Not normal in their area and I don't know what motive they would have to make it up.
On the other hand, I googled the locations of the takeoff location, the landing strip the author of the above article and the Maldives. Moving from an unknown area a bit northeast of Kuala Lampur to make a sharp left turn toward the landing strip the pilot headed toward did not leave a course directly toward the Maldives. OTOH, I realize that I was guessing at where the left turn was made and also guessing at some location on the Maldives, looking at a flat map, not a globe, etc.
I also saw an interview with a retired pilot who has flown that type of plane; he said based on what he'd seen, he believed somebody messed with the plane.
I believe in Occam's Razor. I also would have expected the simplest, most obvious explanation to be the first thing investigated, and iirc the initial area searched covered where they would have landed if they'd gone down immediately. I'm guessing that even if the Malaysian officials didn't think of that first, that somebody else would have suggested it to them.
There is, of course, the possibility that they have data and information they are not sharing with reporters.
Understand, too, that some people just really enjoy a mystery and detective work. One that's unfolding live is irresistable.
Oh, another piece of information that I read today. Apparently ACARS didn't stop functioning totally. Instead, it was relaying information, but intermittantly.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]
