Final two communications from MH370 support controlled descent scenario (2021)

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Controlled descent and fate of passengers

  • Thread starts by asking: if the airplane glided under control, why no survivors or signals?
  • Multiple replies stress: escaping a damaged, rapidly sinking airliner in open ocean is extremely hard; even in calm seas, survivors are very hard to spot.
  • Life vests lack active beacons; if slides/rafts weren’t properly deployed, detection chances were near zero.

Cabin depressurization and murder‑suicide scenario

  • Several comments outline a scenario: deliberate depressurization at cruise altitude, with pilots using long‑endurance oxygen while passengers’ masks run out in 15–30 minutes.
  • At high altitude, even with masks, passengers would quickly lose consciousness unless the aircraft descended.
  • This is compared to past depressurization accidents; many see deliberate pilot action as the most plausible explanation.
  • Others question why aircraft even allow manual depressurization; replies point out it’s needed for fires, malfunctions, and that pilots already have many ways to crash a plane.

Water ditching feasibility

  • Consensus: ditching a large airliner in open ocean is possible but extremely dangerous and rarely survivable for most occupants, unlike the Hudson River case.
  • Examples of past ditchings show high fatality rates; open‑ocean waves and under‑wing engines make controlled water landings especially hard.

Location hypotheses and search methods

  • New “perfect hiding place” claim (Broken Ridge) is noted from popular press; commenters question the framing that previous narratives were “no‑blame.”
  • A barnacle‑drift (balanidae) study on recovered debris is highlighted as a potentially more accurate constraint on the crash location than “arc” models.
  • A WSPR radio‑scatter tracking proposal is recalled and heavily criticized as non‑reproducible and unvalidated.

Operational and UX issues in the search

  • Discussion of how airline ops misread a commercial flight‑tracking website that extrapolated paths after loss of transponder data.
  • Broader debate about poor interfaces and misunderstanding of data sources (altitude, fuel range, radar) in aviation systems, and how design vs training contributes to accidents.

Media, copycats, and ethics

  • Concern raised that heavy focus on murder‑suicide narratives may trigger copycats; study cited linking publicity of murder‑suicides to subsequent fatal crashes.
  • Tension noted between families’ right to know, press freedom, and risk of encouraging similar acts.

Conspiracy theories vs simpler explanations

  • A high‑profile book proposing a shoot‑down/cover‑up is summarized and widely dismissed in the thread as a conspiracy theory that fails Occam’s Razor.
  • Late‑breaking claim that its scenario was partly constructed under editorial pressure is mentioned.
  • Multiple commenters converge on deliberate pilot murder‑suicide, likely involving depressurization, as the simplest explanation consistent with known data.