 |
| Graphic illustration: Andre Heath. |
"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man ... a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. Next stop The Twilight Zone." - Rod Serling, The Twilight Zone.
December 28, 2014 - SOUTHEAST ASIA - The disappearance Sunday of AirAsia Flight 8501 was the third air incident this year involving Malaysia, where budget carrier AirAsia in based. Here's a look at the two other disasters, as well as the latest missing flight, which went missing with 162 people aboard less than an hour after taking off from Surabaya, Indonesia, for Singapore.
Missing flight is 3rd Malaysia-linked incident
MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370
The
disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 on March 8 triggered
one of modern aviation's most perplexing mysteries. Flight 370, carrying
239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, vanished without a trace,
sending searchers across vast areas of the Indian Ocean. An initial
multinational operation to locate the wreckage far off Australia's west
coast turned up empty, without a single piece of debris found.
After a four-month hiatus, the hunt resumed Oct. 4 with new, more sophisticated equipment, including sonar, video cameras and jet fuel sensors aboard three ships that will spend up to a year in a desolate stretch of the sea, about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) west of Australia.
The 60,000-square-kilometer (23,000-square-mile) search area lies along what is known as the "seventh arc" — a stretch of ocean where investigators believe the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed, based largely on an analysis of transmissions between the plane and a satellite.
Officials initially ruled out terrorism, but conspiracy theories have endured. Until the wreckage is found and examined, it will be impossible to say for sure what happened to the plane.
___
MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 17All 298 passengers and crew aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were killed when the Boeing 777 was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine on July 17.
The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when, according to Dutch air crash investigators, it was likely struck by multiple "high-energy objects" that some aviation experts say is consistent with a missile strike.
Hunks of the wreckage were transported to the Netherlands by trucks and will be reassembled in a hangar. However, international teams seeking to retrieve remains and salvage evidence have had difficulty reaching the crash site due to clashes between Ukrainian government troops and Russian-backed separatist rebels. Six victims have yet to be identified.
A high-ranking rebel officer has acknowledged that rebels shot down the plane with a ground-to-air missile after mistaking it for a Ukrainian military plane. Russian media, however, claim the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian jet.
The Dutch Safety Board's final report may rule out one or the other scenario, but it will not seek to attribute responsibility.
Dutch prosecutors, meanwhile, are coordinating an international criminal investigation into the downing, but have yet to name any suspects or say when or how charges might be brought.
___
AIR ASIA FLIGHT 8501
An Indonesia AirAsia flight with 162 people aboard, most of them Indonesians, disappeared Sunday over the Java Sea, triggering a search involving several Southeast Asian nations.
Contact with Flight 8501 was lost about 42 minutes after the single-aisle, twin-engine A320-200 jet took off from Surabaya airport in Indonesia for Singapore.
It was not immediately clear whether it had any satellite tracking devices on board.
Malaysia-based AirAsia, led by Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes, has dominated cheap travel in the region for years. AirAsia Malaysia owns 49 percent of its subsidiary, AirAsia Indonesia. It said the plane was on the submitted flight plan route when the pilots requested deviation due to weather before communication was lost.
AirAsia, which has a presence in most of Southeast Asia and recently in India, has never lost a plane before and has a good safety track record. - Daily Mail.
After a four-month hiatus, the hunt resumed Oct. 4 with new, more sophisticated equipment, including sonar, video cameras and jet fuel sensors aboard three ships that will spend up to a year in a desolate stretch of the sea, about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) west of Australia.
The 60,000-square-kilometer (23,000-square-mile) search area lies along what is known as the "seventh arc" — a stretch of ocean where investigators believe the aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed, based largely on an analysis of transmissions between the plane and a satellite.
Officials initially ruled out terrorism, but conspiracy theories have endured. Until the wreckage is found and examined, it will be impossible to say for sure what happened to the plane.
___
MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 17All 298 passengers and crew aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were killed when the Boeing 777 was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine on July 17.
The plane was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when, according to Dutch air crash investigators, it was likely struck by multiple "high-energy objects" that some aviation experts say is consistent with a missile strike.
Hunks of the wreckage were transported to the Netherlands by trucks and will be reassembled in a hangar. However, international teams seeking to retrieve remains and salvage evidence have had difficulty reaching the crash site due to clashes between Ukrainian government troops and Russian-backed separatist rebels. Six victims have yet to be identified.
A high-ranking rebel officer has acknowledged that rebels shot down the plane with a ground-to-air missile after mistaking it for a Ukrainian military plane. Russian media, however, claim the plane was shot down by a Ukrainian jet.
The Dutch Safety Board's final report may rule out one or the other scenario, but it will not seek to attribute responsibility.
Dutch prosecutors, meanwhile, are coordinating an international criminal investigation into the downing, but have yet to name any suspects or say when or how charges might be brought.
___
AIR ASIA FLIGHT 8501
An Indonesia AirAsia flight with 162 people aboard, most of them Indonesians, disappeared Sunday over the Java Sea, triggering a search involving several Southeast Asian nations.
Contact with Flight 8501 was lost about 42 minutes after the single-aisle, twin-engine A320-200 jet took off from Surabaya airport in Indonesia for Singapore.
It was not immediately clear whether it had any satellite tracking devices on board.
Malaysia-based AirAsia, led by Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes, has dominated cheap travel in the region for years. AirAsia Malaysia owns 49 percent of its subsidiary, AirAsia Indonesia. It said the plane was on the submitted flight plan route when the pilots requested deviation due to weather before communication was lost.
AirAsia, which has a presence in most of Southeast Asia and recently in India, has never lost a plane before and has a good safety track record. - Daily Mail.
AirAsia Carriers Have Clean Safety Record
 |
| © REUTERS/ Olivia Harris/Files |
Until Sunday, AirAsia and its regional affiliates enjoyed a nearly flawless safety record, with no fatal accidents involving their planes, according to aviation industry experts.
The Malaysian discount carrier was launched in 2001 with two planes when entrepreneur Tony Fernandes and his partners bought the defunct airline for a token sum of 25 U.S. cents.
The airline has quickly grown to become the biggest carrier in Malaysia and is among the pioneers of discount air travel in Asia, setting up affiliates in several countries. From its onset, AirAsia has made safety one of its top priorities, according to the airline, having invested significantly in pilot training and aircraft-maintenance programs.
Before Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 went missing Sunday morning, AirAsia had a track record of no fatal accidents, though it did have a number of “runway excursions,” technical jargon to describe an aircraft skidding off the runway or tarmac, something that experts said happens at many airports from time to time.
“AirAsia has had a good safety record. Indonesia’s safety record has been on the blemish due to some previous incidents but AirAsia is a very well-run carrier and [Indonesia AirAsia] has escaped safety issues so far,” said Greg Waldron, the Asia managing editor for industry publication Flightglobal.
However, he said it was too early to determine any cause for Flight QZ8501’s disappearance, noting it could take months before authorities find out what happened.
AirAsia also operates a relatively new fleet of Airbus jets, with the young age of the planes helping to reduce maintenance issues. Airbus delivered the aircraft that went missing to the carrier in October 2008.
As part of AirAsia’s expansion plans in Southeast Asia, the group in 2004 bought a 49% stake in a small Indonesia airline, and later renamed the carrier Indonesia AirAsia.
Flightglobal’s Ascend Fleets database showed only one minor incident involving Indonesia AirAsia that took place in May 2007, when one of its Boeing Co 737 jets made a hard landing, causing some damage to its fuselage. No injuries were reported and the aircraft was later repaired.
AirAsia also has affiliates in Thailand, the Philippines and India, and plans to relaunch in Japan as it expands further. AirAsia and Indonesian rival Lion Air have, between them, outstanding orders for more than 1,000 planes.
The European Commission in 2007 banned all Indonesia-based airlines from flying planes into European Union airspace out of safety concerns after a series of fatal incidents in Indonesia. The commission since 2009 has taken several airlines off the list, including Indonesia AirAsia and Garuda Indonesia, the Indonesian flag carrier, citing safety improvements.
Meanwhile, Lion Air, which is AirAsia’s main competitor in Southeast Asia, is still on the EU air-safety list, which bans some 308 airlines from 21 countries from operating in European airspace, according to information on the EU website. - WSJ.
Pilot asked to deviate from flight plan...?!
 |
| The known route of AirAsia Flight 8501 |
With the disappearance Sunday morning of yet another plane from Southeast Asia, the day unfolded here with scenes that have grown tragically familiar: the series of news conferences by government and airline officials, the mounting of a huge search-and-recovery operation, the families gathered at the airport tearfully awaiting word.
Indonesian authorities began and then had to suspend an air search for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 passengers and crew members after it lost contact Sunday morning with air traffic control.
By nightfall Sunday, Indonesian officials said they had spotted no sign of the plane in the area over the Java Sea but had to stop their search because of bad weather and darkness. The air search was to be continued Monday morning.
Flight QZ8501 — an Airbus A320-200 jet — was bound for Singapore and lost contact at 6:17 a.m. local time (6:17 p.m. Saturday in Washington). The break in communications occurred 42 minutes after takeoff from the Indonesian city of Surabaya and roughly an hour before its scheduled landing at Changi Airport, Indonesian authorities said.
AirAsia said in a statement that the plane’s pilot had requested to deviate from the submitted flight plan because of weather before communication was lost. - Washington Post.
Anomalies...?!
 |
| Graphic illustration: Andre Heath. |
As stated before, Flight QZ8501’s disappearance comes on the heels of two other major airplane disasters this year — all with a Malaysia connection. AirAsia is a budget airline based in Malaysia, although the plane that lost contact belonged to AirAsia’s Indonesian affiliate. In March, Beijing-bound Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, with 239 people on board; it is still missing. In July, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Ukraine; all 298 people aboard died.
In the case of
Flight 370, one of the most eerie rumors came after a few relatives said
they were able to call the cellphones of their loved ones or find them
on a Chinese instant messenger service called QQ that indicated that
their phones were still somehow online.
A migrant worker in the room said that several other workers from his company were on the plane, including his brother-in-law. Among them, the QQ accounts of three still showed that they were online, he said Sunday afternoon.
Adding to the mystery, other relatives in the room said that when they dialed some passengers' numbers, they seemed to get ringing tones on the other side even though the calls were not picked up.
In the case of AirAsia, Sputnik News is reporting today that "a relative of a missing passenger has reportedly received a text message from an unknown sender, stating that the plane made an emergency landing and all passengers are alive. The Indonesian Transportation Ministry is examining these claims."
A migrant worker in the room said that several other workers from his company were on the plane, including his brother-in-law. Among them, the QQ accounts of three still showed that they were online, he said Sunday afternoon.
Adding to the mystery, other relatives in the room said that when they dialed some passengers' numbers, they seemed to get ringing tones on the other side even though the calls were not picked up.
In the case of AirAsia, Sputnik News is reporting today that "a relative of a missing passenger has reportedly received a text message from an unknown sender, stating that the plane made an emergency landing and all passengers are alive. The Indonesian Transportation Ministry is examining these claims."
Flight
370's disappearance was so strange, that even mainstream journalist
such as CNN’s Don Lemon entertained all sorts of theories about the
missing plane, including the chance something “supernatural” happened. On one show, he actually asked panelists about the possibility a black hole was involved.
Lemon
brought this up along with other “conspiracy theories” people have been
floating on Twitter, including people noting the eerie parallels to Lost and The Twilight Zone, and wondered, “is it preposterous” to consider a black hole as a possibility?
Mary Schiavo, a former Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said, “A small black hole would suck in our entire universe, so we know it’s not that.”
Here’s another theory I’ll just throw out there: what about the plane entered a wormhole into another dimension? I don’t know if that’s how the science works, though.
WATCH: Here's the video, via CNN:
Mary Schiavo, a former Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said, “A small black hole would suck in our entire universe, so we know it’s not that.”
Here’s another theory I’ll just throw out there: what about the plane entered a wormhole into another dimension? I don’t know if that’s how the science works, though.
WATCH: Here's the video, via CNN:
Following, Flight 370's inexplicable disappearance, Natural News offered the following supernatural explanations, which now seems quite applicable to the current situation involving AirAsia's Flight QZ8501:
Four mind-bending possibilities, none of which seem possible
This
brings up the immediate bind-bending question of how electronic devices
on a commercial flight that vanished still appear to be connected to
the internet. The explanations for this defy everything we think we know
about reality:
• Mind-bending possibility #1, the "kidnapped" explanation: The plane somehow landed somewhere without leaving a radar signature of any kind, all the passengers are being held hostage there (and are thus still alive), their mobile devices are somehow within cell tower range and yet for some reason have not been confiscated. (This explanation seems extremely unlikely.)
• Mind-bending possibility #2, the "Stargate" explanation: A teleportation portal of some kind exists in the skies, through which the plane inadvertently flew and was teleported somewhere else. Yet, astonishingly, electromagnetic signals can still make it through the portal, and the two sides of the portal remain in contact across the radio spectrum. (This explanation sounds like pure science fiction and also seems extremely unlikely, yet we must at least acknowledge that modern physics has already demonstrated the instantaneous teleportation of information across apparently infinite space due to the "non-locality" of entangled electrons as described in quantum theory.)
• Mind-bending possibility #3, the "failed search" explanation: This far more mundane explanation supposes that the massive, multi-day search for plane wreckage and debris simply hasn't stumbled upon the correct location yet. The fact that airplane black boxes broadcast homing signals adds to the skepticism that this explanation holds any water, as it is extremely unlikely that the airplane's black boxes could have been obliterated. Nevertheless, this explanation still seems far more believable than supernatural explanations.
• Mind-bending possibility #4, the "advanced military weapons" explanation: Some military entity, either human or non-human, was testing an advanced weapon capable of either instantly obliterating large airborne objects or teleporting them to another place (or dimension). This explanation seems incredibly far-fetched, but then again, barely a hundred years ago, so did the idea that machines could ever fly at all. Related to this is the legend of the Philadelphia Experiment which some believe caused a U.S. Navy ship to vanish and reappear.
We must first stick to mundane explanations until more searches can be conducted
As someone who is trained in the sciences, I remain very skeptical that Flight 370 vanished for supernatural reasons, yet its disappearance unquestionably defies all known conventional explanations so far.
The vanishing of aircraft over the ocean is not without precedent, either. According to historical records, the so-called "Bermuda Triangle" causes both ships and aircraft to vanish for reasons that defy apparent scientific explanation. While the disappearance of ships can theoretically be explained by underwater volcanoes emitting large quantities of gas that mix with ocean waters and cause ships to immediately lose bouyancy, there has never been any convincing scientific explanation behind the disappearance of the many aircraft there. Click here for a list of the top 10 mysteries of vanishing aircraft, including some lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
With each passing day that this search goes on without finding any debris from the fight, it is incredibly reasonable to at least entertain supernatural possibilities in the quest for answers. At some point, if no debris ever appears, we must expand our window of possibilities to include what military strategists refer to as "unknown unknowns." - Natural News.
• Mind-bending possibility #1, the "kidnapped" explanation: The plane somehow landed somewhere without leaving a radar signature of any kind, all the passengers are being held hostage there (and are thus still alive), their mobile devices are somehow within cell tower range and yet for some reason have not been confiscated. (This explanation seems extremely unlikely.)
• Mind-bending possibility #2, the "Stargate" explanation: A teleportation portal of some kind exists in the skies, through which the plane inadvertently flew and was teleported somewhere else. Yet, astonishingly, electromagnetic signals can still make it through the portal, and the two sides of the portal remain in contact across the radio spectrum. (This explanation sounds like pure science fiction and also seems extremely unlikely, yet we must at least acknowledge that modern physics has already demonstrated the instantaneous teleportation of information across apparently infinite space due to the "non-locality" of entangled electrons as described in quantum theory.)
• Mind-bending possibility #3, the "failed search" explanation: This far more mundane explanation supposes that the massive, multi-day search for plane wreckage and debris simply hasn't stumbled upon the correct location yet. The fact that airplane black boxes broadcast homing signals adds to the skepticism that this explanation holds any water, as it is extremely unlikely that the airplane's black boxes could have been obliterated. Nevertheless, this explanation still seems far more believable than supernatural explanations.
• Mind-bending possibility #4, the "advanced military weapons" explanation: Some military entity, either human or non-human, was testing an advanced weapon capable of either instantly obliterating large airborne objects or teleporting them to another place (or dimension). This explanation seems incredibly far-fetched, but then again, barely a hundred years ago, so did the idea that machines could ever fly at all. Related to this is the legend of the Philadelphia Experiment which some believe caused a U.S. Navy ship to vanish and reappear.
We must first stick to mundane explanations until more searches can be conducted
As someone who is trained in the sciences, I remain very skeptical that Flight 370 vanished for supernatural reasons, yet its disappearance unquestionably defies all known conventional explanations so far.
The vanishing of aircraft over the ocean is not without precedent, either. According to historical records, the so-called "Bermuda Triangle" causes both ships and aircraft to vanish for reasons that defy apparent scientific explanation. While the disappearance of ships can theoretically be explained by underwater volcanoes emitting large quantities of gas that mix with ocean waters and cause ships to immediately lose bouyancy, there has never been any convincing scientific explanation behind the disappearance of the many aircraft there. Click here for a list of the top 10 mysteries of vanishing aircraft, including some lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
With each passing day that this search goes on without finding any debris from the fight, it is incredibly reasonable to at least entertain supernatural possibilities in the quest for answers. At some point, if no debris ever appears, we must expand our window of possibilities to include what military strategists refer to as "unknown unknowns." - Natural News.
