Flight 370

nzlockie: There are locksmith fakers? Wow. I would have thought that's a pretty hard thing to fake. Either you can open locks or you can't. Don't locksmiths also have professional affiliations or something?

admin: Haha - oh man don't get me started!

Most countries in the world, NZ included, have absolutely zero restrictions on who can be a locksmith. In HB we literally have a guy who has come straight out of prison for theft charges and has opened up a locksmith shop. It's stupid. I wish the public would be informed more on stuff like this, but it's just not "newsworthy" enough.

And most definitely not a hard thing to fake. On youtube they usually do it by removing internal components to make picking the lock easier. Or by practicing with a specific cylinder until they have memorised the picking order and even the depths of cuts on the key.
It's amazing how quickly their confidence fades when I ask them to demo it in front of my class.

nzlockie: Just give it a super punchy title and everyone will be reading this. "Five secrets locksmiths don't want you to know" or something.

Fun fact: new press conference reveals that I was the most likely to have been right on this thread (I am now officially a psychopath). Terrible news really.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11220305

admin: At this point of time, I'm not sure we can believe anything 'official' Malaysian authorities say. They have been going back and forth on the details so often its not even funny anymore. The head of the Malaysian investigation team denied this, btw. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/10699933/Missing-Malaysia-Airlines-flight-MH370-investigator-denies-claim-plane-was-hijacked.html

Cermank: Note that nobody official has ever said a hijacking was conclusive. The Malaysian PM was very clear at the press conference when he said that they're only putting out official information that has been verified as definitely accurate. At this point we do know for sure that the aircraft behaved in a manner consistent with a deliberate action, but not with any known accidental process. The investigation team therefore, while keeping their minds open, have thus agreed to focus on what they can find out about the passengers and crew onboard, and speaking with the relevant foreign embassies.

I don't believe the officials have ever gone back and forth. The only times they've run into trouble is that some media heard some of them speaking in absolutes early in the investigation causing some to jump to conclusions, particularly via leaks (ie "It was captured on military radar" ... "well, we don't know that for sure") which is more to do with how some people naturally talk about something than any clueless back and forth. I do that too - for example, I tend to say "It will be a fine day tomorrow" which should be interpreted as "I read the weather forecast which predicted good weather tomorrow with a high degree of certainty", not "I know for certain that tomorrow will be a fine day".

Also, interesting idea I just saw floated on Reddit. Wonder if I can turn this into a debate resolution somehow?

"These pins that the satellites received for hours after the transponder was switched off - we have been told that the satellites did not log the engines' gps location because Malaysian Airlines had not paid for that service. In light of this incident, would you agree that a better policy would be to log it anyway, and to sell it to the Malaysians of they want it? That way the information is still available for these types of situations."

admin: I guess that's true. But I've been trying keeping a tab at this since the story developed, and it has been difficult keeping the speculations from the substantial truth, given a lot of it is coming from 'the official sources who aren't allowed to speak to the media'. Initially, for instance, the officials said that they lost contact with the plane 2 hours after the takeoff, it then went down to 40 minutes, then went up to 2 hours again. (I don't even know how that would be a point of contention, I'd think theses details would be logged). Plus, the Malaysian PM did say that 'deliberate action' was to blame for the plane's disappearance. So going back on that seems futile.

Although yeah, given that the plane switched off the ACARS just after it existed the Malaysian borders, went back and turned off the transponder, and then flew zig-zag, I'd say the the probability of it being hijacked seems high. There was a newspiece this morning about some American official saying that the plane might have been planning a 9/11-esque attack on India, but almost no-one is paying attention to that, and there are so many thing wrong with the theory that it seems one of those wild speculations. It seems like a hijack gone wrong on the surface, however.

Although given that Malaysian officials have told India to call off the search temporarily, however, I think we can safely conclude that they know something substantial. Perhaps the mystery will unveil in near future. *hopeful*

There is a new theory in this madness. One theory has it that one of the pilots could of knocked out the passenger section via their oxygen supply.

Tophatdoc: Possible but hard to determine. I've also seen a theory that the pilots were trying to turn to an obscure airport due to an onboard fire that's gaining some momentum right now.

admin: I only wonder when we will find the passengers and what theory was correct. I am sure that they are dead at this point because I assume we would of at least heard from one survivor. Unless they were killed and a person or a group got away.

Australia's pretty sure they've found something!

admin: A brain for them to share? A less annoying accent? another public holiday?

nzlockie: They don't know what it is yet, so a NZ aircraft is on its way to help them out.

admin: It's probably a seagull. Stupid Aussies.

nzlockie: Looks more like a sunken yacht to me.

admin: And now they've lost the image of it.

admin: I hope they find it. It'd be kind of mixed emotions for the Kiwi chick who's husband was on the plane right? They live in Perth.
You'd feel kind of weird I think, thinking that while you thought he was missing in Malaysia/China, he was actually flying back towards you...

http://www.thecivilian.co.nz/malaysian-search-and-rescue-finds-amelia-earhart-lost-city-of-atlantis/

admin: Too soon?

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-jitXZWUQj_k/UyouyaYG8AI/AAAAAAAAZSk/Js8mcCvkbB4/w426-h510/14%2B-%2B1