New York: The most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Rarely do incidents happen when a plane is cruising seven miles above the earth.
So the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet well into its flight Saturday morning over the South China Sea has led aviation experts to assume that whatever happened was quick and left the pilots no time to place a distress call.
It could take investigators months, if not years, to determine what happened to the Boeing 777 flying from Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Some of the possible causes for the plane disappearing include:
— A catastrophic structural failure of the airframe or its Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines.
— Bad weather. Planes are designed to fly though most severe storms. However, in June 2009, an Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed during a bad storm over the Atlantic Ocean. — Pilot disorientation. Curtis said that the pilots could have taken the plane off autopilot and somehow went off course and didn't realize it until it was too late. The plane could have flown for another five or six hours from its point of last contact, putting it up to 3,000 miles away.
— Failure of both engines. In January 2008, a British Airways 777 crashed about 1,000 feet short of the runway at London's Heathrow Airport. As the plane was coming in to land, the engines lost thrust because of ice buildup in the fuel system.
— A bomb. Several planes have been brought down including Pan Am Flight 103 between London and New York in December 1988.
— Hijacking. A traditional hijacking seems unlikely given that a plane's captors typically land at an airport and have some type of demand. But a 9/11-like hijacking is possible, with terrorists forcing the plane into the ocean.
— Pilot suicide. There were two large jet crashes in the late 1990s that investigators suspected were caused by pilots deliberately crashing the planes.
— Accidental shoot-down by some country's military. In July 1988, the United States Navy missile cruiser USS Vincennes accidently shot down an Iran Air flight, killing all 290 passengers and crew.
Scott Mayerowitz/Joan Lowy/Associated Press/ABC News
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So the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet well into its flight Saturday morning over the South China Sea has led aviation experts to assume that whatever happened was quick and left the pilots no time to place a distress call.
It could take investigators months, if not years, to determine what happened to the Boeing 777 flying from Malaysia's capital city of Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Some of the possible causes for the plane disappearing include:
— A catastrophic structural failure of the airframe or its Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines.
— Bad weather. Planes are designed to fly though most severe storms. However, in June 2009, an Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed during a bad storm over the Atlantic Ocean. — Pilot disorientation. Curtis said that the pilots could have taken the plane off autopilot and somehow went off course and didn't realize it until it was too late. The plane could have flown for another five or six hours from its point of last contact, putting it up to 3,000 miles away.
— Failure of both engines. In January 2008, a British Airways 777 crashed about 1,000 feet short of the runway at London's Heathrow Airport. As the plane was coming in to land, the engines lost thrust because of ice buildup in the fuel system.
— A bomb. Several planes have been brought down including Pan Am Flight 103 between London and New York in December 1988.
— Hijacking. A traditional hijacking seems unlikely given that a plane's captors typically land at an airport and have some type of demand. But a 9/11-like hijacking is possible, with terrorists forcing the plane into the ocean.
— Pilot suicide. There were two large jet crashes in the late 1990s that investigators suspected were caused by pilots deliberately crashing the planes.
— Accidental shoot-down by some country's military. In July 1988, the United States Navy missile cruiser USS Vincennes accidently shot down an Iran Air flight, killing all 290 passengers and crew.
Scott Mayerowitz/Joan Lowy/Associated Press/ABC News
