Has 370 Been Found?

We’ll have to wait and see whether the debris spotted in the Indian Ocean southwest of Perth is from flight 370.  It is not unprecedented for containers to fall off cargo container ships, and Perth ships a lot of things across the Indian ocean (including live sheep—I saw a sheep container ship being loaded in Perth once), and I know a defense contractor who told me of the latest (unclassified) gismo they were working on—a ship container that would be deliberately programmed to fall off a ship somewhere, sink to the bottom of the ocean, and remain in place until being retrieved later when the need arose for pre-positioned supplies.  But they hadn’t worked out all the bugs yet.  So the debris spotted could be a lot of things besides airplane wreckage.

Meanwhile, CNN’s Don Lemon is doubling down on supernatural explanations, such as suggesting that maybe the plane was swallowed up by a black hole:

Did someone change CNN to “Comedy News Network” when I wasn’t watching?

Henry Blodget summarizes the reasons why the slow-fire scenario I mentioned here yesterday is likely wrong.

There’s another curious omission in the press coverage.  It is reported that the pilot’s family moved out a day or two before the flight, and that his marriage was breaking up.  Where is the family now?  I assume Malaysian authorities have interviewed them, but in all the coverage of the pilot’s friends who attest to his good character, I am surprised no one in the media has gotten to the family.  If 370 turns out to be pilot suicide, it could be for purely personal reasons having nothing to do with jihadist ideology but with parallel motivations—a supremely vindictive act to involve innocent civilians.

I raise this scenario not to add to more layers of speculation, but to bring up another problem with any of the alternative hijacking or rogue pilot scenarios.  We hardened cockpit cabin doors after 9/11, but may now need to rethink this.  If a pilot went rogue, or the plane was hijacked, the locked and fortified cabin door would make it nearly impossible for the rest of the cabin crew or passengers to intervene like Flight 93.  An air marshal might shoot through a door, but that is highly risky, and I don’t know whether Malaysian Air places air marshals on their flights.  (Another detail I haven’t heard anyone ask about.)

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