Flight 370

I guess I will put in my two cents on the missing airplane. Although, it is possible that the plane crashed in the ocean, it is just as likely that the plane could have been hijacked. I am starting to believe the latter, if only because of the information that it flew for 4 hours after turning off the transponder.

What strikes me the most is this perception we have that an airliner can not  disappear. We tend to view the rest of the world by our own perceptions. In America, if a missing 777 disappeared, we would probably locate it in hours. The simple fact is we are all connected with multiple lines of communication. If it landed at a small municipal airfield in Nebraska. Most of the people would know about it in hours, as one neighbor called another, texted a picture, or talked at the local coffee shop(tavern).

However, you are looking at an area with a relatively high population density, but there are several areas with minimal outside communication. There are islands without the basic infrastructure we take for granted here. Like a phone line, or electrical grid. Everyone may know by the end of the day that a large airplane had landed. However, with limited connection to the wider world, that knowledge could be kept in the isolated area. Most of the citizen may not be aware that an airliner went missing. Therefore, you would not have to corrupt many individuals to keep your secret. Only the few people in power. They will be the only ones with electricity, and outside communication.

Now, you are saying, if their lifestyle is so primitive. How can you even land a large aircraft there? That is the amazing thing I discovered by studying Google Earth. There are a large number of unregistered airports. Not just grass strips, But, with long concrete runways. It is hard to say how many of them could actually support the weight of the aircraft or are wide enough. However, since most of the data in Google Earth for this region is 10 years old on average, many could have been updated since then.

I cringe when I hear someone say. “Why can’t they find the plane on Google Earth?”

That is because many of them do not realize that the data on Google Earth, is archival information, not real time. As far as I know there is not full 24 hour coverage of the whole earth at this level. If there was you would only have to go back on tape to retrace the flight from it’s origin. 

You are lucky that image you are viewing on Google Earth is only a year old. And most of the area is uninteresting to Intelligence Agencies. You have hotspots that they try to stay on top of, But for the most part, there just isn't enough resources or people to monitor every square foot of the earth. And now if your population does not have electricity, that means you are almost immune from spying by the NSA, and most other intelligence gathering agencies. You are only going to commit your limited human assets to known highly volatile areas. If an island is politically stable, it will be ignored. Even if you have the most barbaric dictator running the island.

So yes, it is possible that someone has hijacked the plane. The scary part is, that if it was hijacked, it will be used for a more sinister plot than just flying into a building. You do not go into all of the planning and expense of acquiring a large and difficult asset, unless you have grander plans for it. Like it’s capacity to carry a large payload. With proper planning, and retooling of the electronics suite, you may be able to enter any airspace you wish.  And from that area of the world, and with the range of the 777, you can reach almost any country you wish. Los Angeles, Jerusalem, London, New Delhi, and Moscow are within possible flight range, Restage the aircraft after the world gives up looking for it, and, New York City, and Washington DC are within range.  911 was different in that they had to use the assets as soon as they acquired it. There was no safe area in that hemisphere to hide the planes. Everyone was connected, and have been since about 1950s on.