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SEEK AND CATCH US IF YOU CAN : MH 370 / FLIGHT MH 370 REVISITED.
It was a weekend and five MAS colleagues were having a drink in a club house bar. They were chatting and interposed with talking shops and about their works. This included aviation matters outside of their works.
Flight Engineer ( F. ENGINEER ) : Do you know I went through the annals of aviation history and I found that there had been more than 123 missing flights unaccounted for. Some of them disappeared without a trace and no one knows what happened to them ( steering the conversation towards his ultimate goals and agenda.).
Pilot : Those were the days gone by. Nowadays with modern technologies of GPS , radars, IT, telecommunication systems and satellites , no flights can go missing for more than a week. They can trace and locate the missing plane quite easily.
F. ENGINEER. : You wanna bet?. I can cause a Boeing 777 plane to go missing and the whole world cannot find it.
Pilot : You must be kidding. With such a large plane how can you hide it? You need a large runway. The world will be eyeing and searching all large runways to look for the plane.
F. Engineer. : Yes, but I am not going to land the plane in any runways. Instead I will land the plane on the biggest runway in the world. The plane will make a sea landing. Out of sight from the world.
Pilot. : My research on past sea landings showed all the planes ended in disasters. One nose dived into the sea. Others had their wings snapped or clipped. While others had their fuselage smashed. One turned turtle after the wing hit the sea and flipped over. All the planes smashed and broke into pieces with few survivors.
F. Engineer. : True, but all those flights had systems failure and malfunctioning planes. Whereas, the plane I am planning is in full system go and in perfect condition with zero malfunction. Also those pilots were making emergency landings and were highly stressed. They made high speed landing head on against the wall of the sea wave in opposite direction causing the plane to smash into pieces.
The Boeing 777 is going to make the sea landing roughly at the same speed as the sea wave and in the same direction along with the wave and riding on it like a surfboard. The Boeing will glide on the sea like a sea plane or a fast moving yacht. In fact once on the sea the plane can be operated like a ship.
The Cargo Stevedore (C. Stevedore ) who was listening attentively decided to interject.
C. Stevedore. : OK, that takes care of the landing. What about the plane? How are you going to hide such a big plane without it being seen?
F. Engineer. : Once on the sea, the plane can be maneuvered like a sea vessel or a ship. The plane can be cruised in circles to run out and burn its fuel. This will ensure that there is no or little oil spleen / slick to indicate the where about of the plane when I scuttle and sink the plane on to the ocean bed to hide it. I may even have to use oil dispersants if need be or even set the oil sleek on fire if it is in broad daylight where the chances of the fire / smoke be seen is very slim.
I will have the manholes and other openings or hatches at the bottom end of the plane be opened to let the sea water in. At the same time I will crack open the hatches / manholes at the top of the plane to let the displaced air out or the plane will not fully sink to the bottom of the sea bed.
The reason why I will crack open the hatches at the top is I do not want any debris or any loose things from inside the plane to float out to the sea surface. This is to ensure that there is no debris or flotsam to indicate the where about of the plane or where it is hidden when the Search & Rescue people come looking for the missing plane. Not yet any way until the right time that is.
C. Stevedore. : What about the passengers and crew? Are you going to drown them all?
F. Engineer. : Ah ha! That is where you come in. ( Actually the F. Engineer had already profiled and studied these people for the last one and half year and knew he could count on them to carry out the caper. Hence, he had invited them over and led the conversation towards his goal and objective. All he wanted now is to get their confirmation to participate in this operation Missing Plane Mystery.). As Cargo Stevedore I want you to smuggle the following items on board the plane. These items must not appear on the cargo manifest. :
1. Four specially modified outboard motor engines that can run on Jet A1 aero plane fuel and three corresponding fuel transfer pumps.
2. Two canisters of sleeping knock-out gas.
3. One hand -crank radio transmitter / receiver.
While in the air, our pilot will simulate violent air turbulence and announced that all passengers and crew to be seated and to don the oxygen masks that dropped down and hanging. Instead of oxygen, they will be inhaling knock-out sleeping gas to put them into deep sleep. Before that our pilot will announce that due to electronic and magnetic interference, all passengers and crew to shut off their mobile phones completely. We don’t want any one to trace the location of the plane via their operating mobile phones.
After the plane had landed on the sea surface, we will ferry the drugged sleeping passengers and crew to a very remote island that I had identified. We will use the dinghies provided in the plane and the smuggled outboard motors to do this. Once on the island we will let the passengers to sleep it off until they wake up the next day. After that our pilot will take the plane out into the mid sea to scuttle and hide it as explained earlier. The plane will tow the dinghy out as well so that the pilot and his helper/s can return to land later on.
For those of us who remained on the island with the rests of the drugged passengers , we will have to pretend ignorance and acted as shocked as the passengers when they wake up. They will be very surprised and mystified as to how they are on an island when a few hours ago they were on board an aero plane flying home. After that we may even help to spread rumors that perhaps the passengers were hijacked and kidnapped by some aliens to be put on an island to study our reactions as earthlings in an experiment for the aliens to observe. We have to feign ignorance and intermingle with the passengers as one of them.
Pilot. : Ok. That takes care of the landing and the concealment of the plane but what about the flight itself? The plane will be constantly under the surveillance of the ground radars and the satellites all the time. They will be monitoring very closely the flight details and movements right from the take-off until the plane landed. How are you going to evade all these sophisticated equipment when the plane has to report to ground controls all the time. The plane’s transponder will automatically and constantly send out signals and reports to ground controls all the time. How are we going to hide our trails when under such close surveillance and monitoring all the time. All the flight movements will be constantly tracked at all time.
F. Engineer. : The trouble with international airlines is that all their flights are routinely scheduled and very regular. We know all their flight paths, flight routes and timing etc.. I will study the air route flight details of all international flights in a certain air corridor for a month before I will tell our pilot when to strike.
After our plane Flight MH XXX had departed KLIA for some three hours or more then our pilot will hijack and take over the plane by switching off the transponder and making a U-turn or flight turn-around. He will then fly the plane piggy back 800 ft. above another plane so that the ground control radar will only register one blip on the radar screen. With our plane’s transponder off and the other plane’s transponder on, and with one blip on the radar screen, ground control will only detect one plane. Our flight MH XXX will disappear from the radar screen and go missing. Likewise, the satellite high above will also register and read as one plane and our MH XXX will also go missing on its screen.
At places where we don’t have another plane to fly piggy back for concealment from detection by radar and satellite, then our pilot will have to fly low but at high speed so as not to attract attention from the ground people below. Flying at low altitude, the ground radar below cannot detect the plane. Likewise for the satellite high above, the plane will look like a fast bullet train or any other fast moving terrestrial (land or sea) vehicle. The plane will blend with the other surface (land or water) vehicles and be camouflaged and not be seen or detected.
Enroute after the flight turn around we will jettison and dump the two black- boxes into the vast ocean below and noting down their GPS coordinates. Similarly we will also note down the GPS coordinates of where we scuttle the plane. This is because we want to tip off the world their where about later on. Maybe 12 or 18 months after MH XXX went missing. Imagine how shocked the world will be to locate the two black boxes but no plane or the plane but no black boxes inside. The whole world will be reverberated in shock when news that the missing MH XXX plane had been found intact and in perfect condition on the ocean bed but no passengers inside because they cannot find any skeletons inside the plane. They seemed to have vanished from inside the plane.
The Flight Steward ( F. Steward )who had been very quiet thus far decided to join in the conversation.
F. Steward : Would it not be very cruel to play such a trick on the passengers’ next –of –kins, relatives and friends. They thought that the passengers had perished in the missing plane crash. Imagine the anguish they have to suffer.
F. Engineer : Death is inevitable. No one can escape from it. So this ‘ death ’ is only a rehearsal and not permanent. After two or three years missing we will bring them back. During the reunion with their loved ones and relatives, all thoughts of anger would be forgotten. Further more, the next-of-kin and family members will be adequately compensated by insurance payments which can be quite a substantial sum.
After all most of the passengers are tourists and adventurers. So we will give them one tour package that no amount of money can buy. A surprise holiday package away from family and business life for a short period, albeit 2/3 years and away from all the hustle bustle of hectic civilization. From young we always have this childhood wish to be marooned on an island just like Robinson Crusoe of the children story book ‘ The Treasure Island ’ written by Lois Stevenson. Just imagine after a sojourn of 2/3 years on a deserted island and getting back to civilization again. They may even experience Rip Van Vinckle but with a shorter period of sleep instead of 50 years. After being missing or ‘dead ‘ for 3 years and ‘ coming back ’ to life all over again.
Don’t worry, after nearly 20 months we will allow some 25 of them to throw floating bottled notes into the sea. We will ask them to scribble the note as follows:
“ HELP !! Marooned on Island.
MH XXX Passenger.
Nik Lee “
We will inform them to put a few strands of their hair inside the bottle as well as a few strands wrapped inside the note before inserting into the bottle and cork it. This is in case the finder of the note lost or misplaced the strands of hair in the note. The police forensic people can still retrieve/recover the strands of hair from inside the bottle for DNA testing to verify the authenticity of the note and the writer. This is because by then there will be a lot of pranksters throwing floating bottled notes around. We will then ask them to cast and throw the bottle into the sea and let it drift.
Let’s say the bottle is found on Bondi Beach, Australia. The finder will hand the bottle and the note to the police station which will then contact Malaysia for the country and city of origin of this passenger. The Bondi police will then fax the note to their oversea counterparts asking them to get the passenger’s relatives and friends to verify if the hand writing is indeed genuine his. Also the Bondi Forensic Dept. will carry out DNA sample testing of the hair strands and request DNA samples of the passenger’s next-of –kin from his home police dept. for matching to confirm that he is indeed alive and not a fraudulent prank.
The world forensic experts will want to study the buoyancy of the bottle. They then will check the weather reports for the last six months of Bondi Beach so that they can backtrack and trace where the bottle could had been thrown from. Once they had determined the possible direction of the island or land mass the bottle had drifted from, they will then launch a massive SAR ( Search & Rescue ) on these possible islands and land mass instead of the fruitless sea search as had been done in the past.
F. Stewardess : What if they find us and the missing passengers on the island ?.
F. Engineer : That’s the whole idea. We want the world to find us. We don’t want our MH XXX plane to go down as one of those missing flight mystery. No! No! No!. We want the world to know that this is a heist / caper pulled off by 5 Malaysians to defy and challenged the whole world to seek and catch us if they can. Imagine the whole world with all their top scientists, experts and their so called advance technologies like radars, satellites and Blue fins etc.. still failed and be fooled by 5 of us. This is better than the movie “ The Italian Job “ . Our names will go down in the annals of history.
After the exposure, only the three of us will step forward and claim our participation in this heist. We let the world know that the other two chose not to surface and not be known. This will let the world go into a frenzy trying to identify the two. After more than a year and all the world investigations failed to identify the two, then the fourth guy will step forward and reveal himself. Then the three of us will publicly welcome him into our fold and admit him as one of us. This will again stir up the world interests to hunt down the fifth person. Again after a while the fifth person will surface and reveal himself to the world. Even then after this we will drop hint that there are three more others involved but not yet surfaced. We want to make this a NEVER ENDING MYSTERY. Let the world search on.
F. Steward: Will we get ourselves into trouble with the govt. authorities?
F. Engineer: Once MH XXX is reported missing, the whole world attention will be on Malaysia. This will put Malaysia on the world map. The Ministry of Tourism should give us a medal for we have generated multi-million of dollars worth of publicity for Malaysia. Right now foreigners always talked of Malaysia as the little known peninsular above Singapore. After MH XXX the world will refer to Singapore as the small little known island city below peninsular Malaysia.
Pilot: Ok. If I am in, will I be the operational pilot for this flight?
F. Engineer: If you are the operational pilot then our steward/ess will have to drug and knock-out your co-pilot to give you a free reign of the plane to hijack and steal it. Otherwise, you have to be a stowaway like me and board the plane. You are familiar with the KLIA airport operations and can easily sneak your way into the plane. You can also use the previous day’s boarding pass to get in. Once in, you can hide in the toilet or sit as a passenger or even as an off-duty pilot going to the destination airport to fly back another MH plane whose original pilot reported in sick and is indisposed.
Don’t forget we have 2 inside people crew member on our team. Before taking off our inside crew member will take the head count and discount the stowaways. They will inform the pilot who will report to the ground authorities that the numbers tallied with the manifest. Hence, no alarm and no records of stowaways on board this flight.
For the stowaways, we have to apply for 2 weeks prior leave so as not to attract unnecessary attention to our absence. After the operation, we will use the motorized raft to the mainland and get back to KL after our ‘ holiday ‘. We must make sure we burn/ obliterate all signs / logo of MH XXX from the raft before abandoning it into the sea with the outboard engine detached and thrown elsewhere. Once back in KL we go back to our normal work life / routine. When people try to talk to us about the missing MH XXX plane, we will feign sadness and grieve and refuse to talk about it. This is so that we will not let ‘ the cat out of the bag ’ and give the game away.
We will keep in touch with our friends left on the island with the hand-crank radio transmitter to update them on family matters and may even conduct commando style night raid to visit them on the island secretly.
Remember, for the whole operation to be successful we must have absolute top secrecy.. You must not hint or tip-off even your close family members or friends like your wife, children or parents. This is because once MH XXX went missing the police will interrogate and question all close family members and friends of the missing crew members. Therefore it is better and very necessary that they do not know anything about this operation. . Else the whole plot will fail.
“ To Achieve Greatness and Great Fame One Must Make Great Sacrifices “
What is 2/3 years isolation from family life and the outside world.
Pilot : Ok. I am in.
C. Stevedore: Count me in too.
Steward/ess : Yes. We are in as well.
F. Engineer: Alright. I will let you all know the actual flight details in due time.
“ Good Night Malaysia “
X XXXX &&&&&xxxxx77777xxxxx88888
FOOTNOTE : Of all the 5 conspirators 3 died of sudden deaths. One in a car accident, another in a building fire and a third of heart attack. Two others still marooned on the island with the rest of the passengers. Hence will the mystery of the missing MH 370 be solved???,
DISCLAIMER
The above story is a fiction and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Though the story is interwoven around actual and factual events but the characters and story / description around it is fictitious. OR IS IT?? Let the readers be the judge.
© 2014 Lee Khim Nik @ Chen
U.S. LOC : 1684921627 / TXu 1-938-984 My ©Off. : LY2014001233 / CRL Y00001349
Email : [email protected]
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