Here are hard facts about Malaysia 777 missing flight

[Not Sure]

@janon, @Not Sure - leaving aside the asinine remarks of the jack@ss who wrote that comment - there are a few questions pertaining to the airplane.

Why did it actually divert to the west?, why wasn't there any mayday calls if the airplane was in any danger?, why isn't the debris of the plane been located assuming it went down? and, if it did not, then where the hell is it?

All your questions start with "why", and if I knew the answer to any of them I would be calling 112 by now

For now, all we can do is speculate with whatever filtered information we are getting through the media. The ringing of phones and their being online on messenger services tell us that the plane may have survived (not so sure about passengers - possibly the phones may have been collected and checked after the demise of the passengers, but I am only speculating and that too wildly).

Secondly, I personally refuse to believe that neither China, nor India, not even the US could detect that plane's movements with so many Subs and Satellites and planes spying in that region. The plane flying at lower altitude also does not make sense because then it won't be able to cross even India with reduced range because of high fuel consumption.

So, to me it seems that whatever the plan was, it has failed. Plane may have crashed, or forced down. Diego Garcia looks like the perfect spot to me, because over India it would be detected for too long by too many radars to keep the info hidden from the public. But if it was forced down to crash, the info will never come out since no one would want to take the blame for spilling the blood of 200+ innocent civilians.

Oh by the way, I do not believe the plane could have made it to Pakistan without Indians noticing it.

 

[illusion8]

All your questions start with "why", and if I knew the answer to any of them I would be calling 112 by now

For now, all we can do is speculate with whatever filtered information we are getting through the media. The ringing of phones and their being online on messenger services tell us that the plane may have survived (not so sure about passengers - possibly the phones may have been collected and checked after the demise of the passengers, but I am only speculating and that too wildly).

Secondly, I personally refuse to believe that neither China, nor India, not even the US could detect that plane's movements with so many Subs and Satellites and planes spying in that region. The plane flying at lower altitude also does not make sense because then it won't be able to cross even India with reduced range because of high fuel consumption.

So, to me it seems that whatever the plan was, it has failed. Plane may have crashed, or forced down. Diego Garcia looks like the perfect spot to me, because over India it would be detected for too long by too many radars to keep the info hidden from the public. But if it was forced down to crash, the info will never come out since no one would want to take the blame for spilling the blood of 200+ innocent civilians.

Oh by the way, I do not believe the plane could have made it to Pakistan without Indians noticing it.

The last one starts with where?

so according to some it was an hijack or a 9/11 gone wrong and someone knew it's intentions and took it down - that's a bit far fetched but likely too.

 

[American Eagle]

@American Eagle : The reaction you got from Indians was completely understandable. As soon as I started reading the article, I wanted to type the same response, without even having read the nasty paragraph that you deleted. The anger was not toward you, but at whoever wrote it.

Sentences like ''designed to be easy to employ so that they can be operated by 3rd world pilots'' is very insulting, and reeks of a superiority complex. As if 3rd world pilots can only handle simple systems, while complex ones are best left to smarter first worlders.

It is true that rich and developed countries like the USA have a larger pool of talented people to draw from - pilots or doctors or engineers or scientists, than poorer countries do. But suggesting that a professional with the same qualifications and expertise in a 3rd world country is still less worthy than one from a first world country is crass condescention. While our talent pool may be smaller, our talent is no less than yours.

It is OK for you to post the articlee here; but when some obvious racism or condescension is pointed out in it, you would do well not to defend it. You can simply disassociate yourself from those statements, instead of defending them.

Once I remember watching Glenn Beck on Fox news, ridiculing Indian doctors and hospitals, when they provided a life saving surgery to an American citizen at a fraction of the cost that an American hospital would have charged for the same service. Here is a 'Young Turks' segment explaining why Beck was wrong, and I think the message applies here too, so please watch it:

@Not Sure @nick_indian

God created all people in His image is my lifelong belief and credo. While I agree that the US American Airlines pilot who is also a retired USAF Colonel exhibts poor choice of words, the fact remains that many nations have to hire Western pilots due to lack of infrastructure and less developed economies to have a home grown latest state of the art pool of qualified pilots.

The following story about China is a major economic power example where even they, China, don't have enough modern aircraft trained pilots:

Overseas pilots just the ticket for airlinesUpdated: 2013-12-13 07:24By Wang Wen (China Daily USA)

As the nation's civil aviation industry scrambles to keep up with demand, it's recruiting more foreign flight crew, Wang Wen reportsAs the ranks of Chinese travelers expand, domestic carriers are adding routes and aircraft at a rapid pace.

But someone has to fly all those planes, and there aren't nearly enough local pilots to fill all the seats. So the nation's air carriers are increasingly turning to foreign pilots, especially captains.

Foreign pilots first entered Chinese airlines and flying schools in 2003, and their number has grown over the years.

At least 1,778 foreign pilots had obtained licenses in China as of the end of 2012, and 622 now fly for Chinese airlines, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

HNA Group Co Ltd plans to recruit about 80 foreign pilots annually in the next three to five years. HNA Group is the fourth-largest airline group in China and parent company of 14 carriers, including Yunnan Lucky Air LLC, Tianjin Airlines Co Ltd and Hainan Airlines Co Ltd.

The group employs more than 210 foreign pilots, all of whom previously worked for overseas airlines. Foreign pilots account for 31.3 percent of all captains at Tianjin Airlines, and one-third of the captains in the Hainan Airlines A330 fleet are foreign nationals.Air China Ltd, the country's flag carrier, employs 49 foreign pilots, who mainly fly international routes connecting China with Europe and Australia.

China Southern Airlines Co Ltd, which has the nation's largest fleet, recruited foreign pilots for the first time in 2012. Now, 100 pilots fly the carrier's Boeing 777s and Airbus A330s.

Most of the foreign pilots employed by Chinese airlines are captains, especially those flying wide-body aircraft, such as the A330 and Boeing 777, because China's civil aviation industry desperately needs experienced captains, not just ordinary pilots.

Shanghai-based Spring Airlines Co Ltd has 59 foreign captains from 12 countries and plans to increase the number every year, said Zhang Wuan, spokesman for China's largest budget airline.

The foreign captains still mainly work on domestic routes, Zhang said, although they only can fly to China's international airports."Compared with training newcomers, it is much more convenient to recruit foreign captains, who are well-trained and very experienced," Zhang said.

Usually, it takes two or three years to train a pilot. Making the grade as a captain requires five to eight years in the sky.But an overall pilot shortage is the basic reason Chinese airlines are scouring the world for flight crew.

China will need 77,400 new pilots through 2032, as the country will triple its fleet to 6,450 aircraft, Boeing Co, the United States-based aircraft manufacturer, said in September.

But there were only 31,381 licensed pilots in China at the end of 2012, according to the CAAC.

The nation's shortage of pilots exceeded 10,000 in 2012, and the number is even bigger now, said Zou Jianjun, a professor at the Civil Aviation Management Institute of China.

Foreign pilots are an effective solution for Chinese airlines, as the domestic pilot training system can't keep up with demand, Zou said.

Attractive alternative

Positions at Chinese airlines look good to many foreign pilots. Chinese airlines offer high salaries, and they offer an alternative to the cost-cutting that's affected the Western civil aviation industry in recent years.


The average monthly salary for foreign pilots in China ranges from $15,000 to $20,000 - double or even triple what Chinese pilots earn and better than the paychecks at many Western carriers.

Some foreign pilots are also drawn to the challenges offered by China's fast-growing civil aviation industry.

"Foreign pilots are more interested in Chinese airlines in recent years, as China's civil aviation industry is on the rise," HNA Group said in a statement to China Daily.

The number of flights in China is expected to grow by about 7 percent annually over the next 20 years, and the country will be the world's largest air traffic market by 2030, according to the CAAC.

"It's a perfect 'give and take'," said Wolfgang Muller, an Austrian A340 captain working at Hainan Airlines.

Some Chinese airlines have set up special departments to manage foreign pilots and help them live in China.

Because of cultural differences, Chinese managers need to be more patient in communicating with expats, said Chen Xin, deputy manager of the foreign pilot fleet at Hainan Airlines.

For example, Chinese pilots accept that they can't take vacation at peak periods in China (usually legal holidays), but managers need to make this clear to foreign pilots, Chen said.

Drawing up the roster for foreign pilots also falls to Chen, and he needs to make sure the Chinese co-pilots can speak English, he said.

"But it's not a problem now, since most of our Chinese pilots speak English fluently," Chen added.

Human resources

However, carriers still face challenges in enlarging their teams of foreign pilots.

For example, according to a regulation issued by the CAAC in 2012, "the proportion of foreign pilots should be controlled inside a reasonable scope by their employers".


Also, China has strict health standards for pilots, and most of the foreign pilots who leave Chinese airlines do so because they're deemed medically unfit, said a business insider who declined to be identified.

The authorities are also pushing domestic carriers to train more Chinese pilots and stop recruiting foreign co-pilots.

Chinese airlines cannot depend too much on foreign pilots or ignore the training of flight crews, Jin Yibin, chief pilot of the CAAC, said during a seminar in 2012.

After all, he said, most foreign pilots leave China eventually and that will mean problems for airlines that depend on them too much now, Jin said.


Zhao Lei contributed to this story.

Contact the writer atwangwen@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 12/13/2013 page17)

All your questions start with "why", and if I knew the answer to any of them I would be calling 112 by now

For now, all we can do is speculate with whatever filtered information we are getting through the media. The ringing of phones and their being online on messenger services tell us that the plane may have survived (not so sure about passengers - possibly the phones may have been collected and checked after the demise of the passengers, but I am only speculating and that too wildly).

Secondly, I personally refuse to believe that neither China, nor India, not even the US could detect that plane's movements with so many Subs and Satellites and planes spying in that region. The plane flying at lower altitude also does not make sense because then it won't be able to cross even India with reduced range because of high fuel consumption.

So, to me it seems that whatever the plan was, it has failed. Plane may have crashed, or forced down. Diego Garcia looks like the perfect spot to me, because over India it would be detected for too long by too many radars to keep the info hidden from the public. But if it was forced down to crash, the info will never come out since no one would want to take the blame for spilling the blood of 200+ innocent civilians.

Oh by the way, I do not believe the plane could have made it to Pakistan without Indians noticing it.

It now looks, in fact, like this missing 777 may have crashed off Australia. Check out current media coverage. It is Wednesday, March 19, 10:43 AM EDT here.

A sad loss of many lives.

 

[Secularpakistani]

Is there data out there to prove that "3rdWorld" pilots crash more planes than "1st world pilots" ?

The term first world and third world has been invented by such morons who even classify china and russia as third world nations
Every nation which is not compatible with their western agenda is called third world