The “confirmation” that the flaperon found on the Reunion Island belongs to MH370 closes the doors on many of the conspiracy theories while also igniting new ones such as was the flaperon deliberately planted at the location?
Now we may have many different conspiracy theories, one element that is accepted by many is that the plane was most likely handled by experts whether present remotely or on the plane. If the experts were present on the plane, they were likely to be a) the pilots, b) someone controlling the plane through the accessible electronics and equipment bay just outside the cockpit, c) hijackers who forced their way to the cockpit, d) ….
Per various theories, the prime suspects in the eyes of many are the pilots, esp. considering that the plane appears to be handled skillfully throughout the operation. Many also believe that the motive behind this could be suicide. And when suicide is being considered, rational reasoning on “why someone would want to do it” gets overshadowed by the thought that human beings, at the end of the day, are irrational as was seen in the Germanwings Flight 9525 incidence.
Moving forward, the key question is – does the disappearance of MH370 in to the deep waters of Southern Indian Ocean (SIO) appear like an event caused by irrational behavior? The entire hijacking operation appears to be well planned, does it not? Some points to consider would be a) the pilot had numerous opportunities to bring the plane down before its eventual end (Germanwings’ pilot did that at the first opportunity), and b) Why SIO?
In case it was a planned suicide, let’s look at the possible reasons for “why SIO” – a) the plane was not intended to be found (but why would a person on a death mission worry about what would happen after his death?), and, assuming that “he” was in fact worried, b) the Black Box designed by Honeywell Aerospace is designed to record communications in a two-hour loop and delete all but the final two hours, so in this case, he would want to end the journey asap after 2 hours of the “turning back” event (But if a person is so worried about what the world would find out, he would probably pick another method to commit suicide involving not sacrificing the other 238 human beings).
Additionally, for what I understand, it is possible to unlock the 777’s cockpit’s door through the electronics and equipment bay, so sooner or later the cockpit’s door would have been unlocked by the crew / other pilot, giving more reasons to the pilot in the cockpit to end the journey asap. However, the plane continued on its journey.
So let’s once again try to find a rational answer to the “why SIO” question. If we try to examine the key strategic assets in the SIO, there is only one – Diego Garcia. Now there have been conspiracy theories on this including a) the plane having landed on the island and b) it having been obliterated by a US missile. However, I do not wish to indulge in these theories. My point is different as you will see.
As I said earlier, the hijacking operation appears to be a very well planned one. We can even see that from the way the flight was selected, i.e. the fuel required to fly from KL to Beijing is sufficient to reach Diego Garcia from KL. From this we can roughly deduce that Diego Garcia would have been the most likely target for the flight considering the SIO route. May be the operation was supposed to be like a Pearl Harbor type of attack on Diego Garcia’s military assets. So the next questions are a) why wasn’t Diego Garcia hit? and b) Why hasn’t anyone claimed responsibility for the hijacking?
Let’s examine the first question – Why wasn’t Diego Garcia hit? One reason for that could be that the flight was diverted away from the intended target. So who would have the skills to divert the flight – the pilots!
A different angle on why the flight went on a “to nowhere” trip is that the pilots somehow managed to confuse the hijackers and divert the flight to a position where it could not harm anyone or anything. Only remaining option left for the flight would be to self-destruct or somehow land somewhere (even on the ocean). To achieve that objective, the pilots may have skillfully diverted the flight in to an area where it was not left with fuel to go anywhere but in to the deep and remote waters of the SIO (where the plane could not harm anyone or anything).
The next question is why would the pilots not crash the flight earlier to prevent the terror attack? Why wait till the very end? A possible explanation is that the pilots wanted to not only thwart the hijackers’ mission, but also save the passengers, crew and themselves. And the only way to do it, esp. if the hijackers are threatening to somehow destroy the plane is to create a diversion, make the plane run out of the fuel, and somehow land it safely without the plane posing a threat to anyone or anything (and also give yourself and others a faint chance of survival). Since the plane was flying over the water, there was no immediate threat of it hitting any target so the pilots had time to work on their plan.
So if this was indeed a terror attack, why hasn’t anyone claimed responsibility? That could be because the mission was unsuccessful. If the plane had actually hit its target, there would have been claims.
The key reason to write this article is to offer a different PoV to the line of thinking that because the plane was guided skillfully to its final destination, somehow the pilots (the most skilled to handle the plane) would be responsible. And since no rational explanation is available, the irrationality can be attributed to suicide, an irrational behavior. However, is there a point in acting irrationally rationally? And it also cannot be implied that just because the plane is farther away from Diego Garcia, it could not have been the target (The plane could have been diverted).
IF the pilots actually managed to thwart a terror attack, they are being unfairly portrayed as key suspects by many. Therefore, an important point for us is to also consider – Are the pilots heroes?
The answers to this would not only lie in what happened in the air on the plane, but also in what happened on the ground at KUL.
(Image Source – WSJ)
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