Wtf? How does a plane vanish?

It could well be that the whole point was to acquire a plane for an attack in the planning.

 

They would have to use the plane pretty soon then considering the amount of 'searching' going on. I wouldn't have thought it could be used anywhere effectively unless locally because it will get shot down.

 

I think its landed, they are being held hostage, the sas are aware, but no media attention is being given to the culprits

 

Or perhaps they could keep the plane hidden for months until it has been largely forgotten about..

 

Seems the most plausible thing to me.

They could change the livery too.

 

If they just wanted the plane there'd be no need to keep the passengers hostage.

 

If they released any hostages then the authorities would know the plane was still intact.

 

I'm not sure that an event, which could be one of the great aviation mysteries of this century, will quickly be forgotten about.

 

If it has landed on a remote island it won't be long before it's found. Intel comms will be all over this; counter-terrorism units around the world will be looking for Sat-phones, any device fitted with GPS and even other, older methods of comms. Looking to identify patterns emerging from countries/islands where the plane could have landed. If this is indeed a kidnapping and the kidnappers are clever people, the best place they could have landed that plane is as close as possible to a populated area. The assumption that a hi-jacking took place is plausible but passenger's comms devices would have had to have been discarded from the plane mid-flight, turning off the devices won't achieve anything and can still be tracked easily.

For me, if this isn't a crash then the pilots have cooperated from the get go, before the flight took off and the theory with the most gravity for me is that it's a plane theft.

If this was an American flight I'd imagine some middle-eastern territory would currently be getting turned into a dust bowl.

 

I wasnt implying they'd be released but that they'd all have been killed by now.

 

OK, fair point.

 

Not if they want ransom money

 

They'd need to ask though...
If hostages and ransoms were part of the plan, why haven't they (whoever they are) made any demands ?

 

They may well have done

 

With passengers from so many nations involved it would be surprising if something didn't leak following any sort of communication.

That's a lot of personnel, ships, planes, families and governments tied up in the search while secret demands are made.

But maybe they have.

 

I take your point, been considering this all day

Who would stump up for the demands? All of the nations with passengers on board?

 

I worked in Air Traffic half my life and I can say it's not hard to make a plane disappear. It's also not hard to incapacitate/kill the passengers.
What is hard to believe, although not impossible is that this plane has landed on some remote strip undetected.
Best guess is it's crashed in the South China Sea. Although both data recorders will be sending out "pings" on contacting water, their range is short and given the vastness of the SCS. Very hard to detect.

 

OK I get your point about losing a plane, but keeping that lost altogether for a prolonged period (whether crashed or hijacked etc)? That is another matter entirely.

 

I admit. It sounds nuts but whoever took this plane, and it was taken. Knew exactly what they were doing.
There are vast areas of our "little" globe have no radar..Even between the US and the UK planes go blind.
If this plane has deliberately ditched in the Sea it's like looking for a needle in a corn field.

 

the range of the beacon/signal from a planes black box is 15 mile ... sweet fa if its at the bottom of the ocean