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Engine Data Reveals That Flight 370 Flew On For Hours After It "Disappeared"
Advocatus Diaboli writes "Aviation investigators and national security officials believe the plane flew for a total of five hours based on data automatically downloaded and sent to the ground from the Boeing Co. 777's engines as part of a routine maintenance and monitoring program. As part of its maintenance agreements, Malaysia Airlines transmits its engine data live to Rolls-Royce for analysis. The system compiles data from inside the 777's two Trent 800 engines and transmits snapshots of performance, as well as the altitude and speed of the jet. Those snippets are compiled and transmitted in 30-minute increments, said one person familiar with the system."
Update: 03/14 11:41 GMT by S : The WSJ has since updated its report to say the data was from the plane's satellite-communication system. However, Malaysian authorities have denied both scenarios, saying neither Boeing nor Rolls-Royce received data past 1:07am (the flight initially disappeared off radar at 1:30am).
... by malaysian officials: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/13/malaysian-officials-deny-flight-mh370-missing-plane-flew-hours
Doesn't everyone else deny this report?
flies for hours after disappearing into ur MUM
Authorities quickly debunked this story this AM.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/13/289758523/officials-dispute-report-that-malaysian-jet-kept-flying-for-hours
~500 mph * 5 hours = 2500 mile radius = 19.6 million square miles.
That's about 10% of the surface of the planet. They're going to need some sort of heading information; you can permanently hide a 777 in that much ocean/mountain/jungle/etc.
Anyone know if the radar hits were meaningful yet?
that relatives called 4 hours after the plane was reported late makes this thing very suspicious. This plane is intact and will be used for something at a later date
You could fly from San Francisco (SFO) to Orlando (MCO) That's a pretty big search radius, if this story is true.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Some Important Person(tm) will emerge and recite a plausible explanation. A group of thundering assholes will then encircle the explanation on sites like this one and declare it "the way it is."
At that point all discussion will be over, and anyone who continues to study the incident, come to any other conclusion, offer any contradictory evidence or otherwise belabor the issue will be labeled a wacko and derided, harassed, shouted down and made fun of forever and ever amen.
You see, in America, critical thinking is prized right up to the point where an important person(tm) speaks. All subsequent critical thinking is conspiracy nut batshit tinfoil hat wearing wacko pluck-your-banjo-with-your-single-tooth teabagger loony.
The funny part is that in every single criminal prosecution in this country, every single prosecutor begins by forming what the thundering assholes would call a "conspiracy theory."
nothing wrong with the Boeing plane... must be terrorists, i hear they were trying to start fires on board earlier by putting in bad batteries.
oh also US government agencies are completely neutral when dealing with large US based corporations... unlike China
I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
Malaysia denies that it is a racist country.
Malaysia denies that its "democracy" is a sham.
Malaysia denies that its government is corrupt.
Malaysia denies that its official race-based policies has forced a lot of talented people leaving the country.
Malaysia denies everything.
So, is it a surprise that Malaysia denies this, as well ?
The Malaysian officers deny the burst mode transmission from the engine's monitoring module based on this statement: "The RR (Rolls Royce) representative in KL (Kuala Lumpur) has no idea of the transmission"
On the other hand, the report of the burst mode transmission kept on going for an additional four (4) hours AFTER the plane supposed to be "lost", is based on the communication between the RR HQ (for Jet Engine) and the Western security agencies.
Which one do you believe ?
It was the SATCOM system of the plane itself, which has the capability of transmitting health and positional data of the entire plane's system for analysis by third-party service and maintenance providers. Airliners have the option to purchase service plans for that but Malaysia Airlines chose to only purchase a separate plane related to data the engine's themselves can transmit (from Rolls Royce, the engine's manufacturer).
Even though Malaysian Airlines didn't have an online service monitoring plan for this specific plane, the plane still performs periodic searches/connections to satellite data communication providers - akin to an unregistered cell phone searching and connecting to a cell tower but without licensed service. This periodic connection occurs approx once every hour on the plane, and by counting the number of attempts (4), authorities believe the plane was either flying or in-tact for at least 4 hours from the last secondary radar ping.
A satellite transmitter on the plane was active for about five hours, indicating the plane was operational after its transponder shut down less than an hour after takeoff, said three U.S. government officials. The 777 can cruise at 500 miles (805 kilometers) an hour or more, meaning it may have flown for as far as 2,500 miles beyond its last point of contact if it was intact and had enough fuel. Link (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-13/missing-malaysian-jet-said-to-have-flown-with-beacon-off.html)
Say they are doing their best to reassure the domestic population that they are in competent control of the disaster, but they're in over their heads...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Something I don't understand is how the plane disappeared from radar yet kept flying. Switching off a transponder does not make a plane disappear from radar, it just means there is a blip on the radar without the data a transponder provides. The fact that no one is bringing this up leads me to believe I'm missing something big here, because as far as I know the only way that plane could have disappeared completely from radar was if it disintegrated.
Evidently the aircraft had enough power to run the pinging transmitter for over 4 hours after the transponder went dead (or was turned off). This implies that the aircraft also had enough power and structural integrity for at least some of its communication systems to work. But the experienced pilots did not make even one distress call or issue a single distress code. Why not? What prevented them from doing it?
Come on guys, it's been DAYS already! How come aliens still not in the picture???
As someone else has already mentioned, this has been denied by Malaysian officials. Just like China has now said that those satellite images which were supposed to show plane debris did in fact not show debris, but indeed, said satellite images were "released by mistake". Just like that admiral of the Vietnamese Navy saying they had lost radar contact with the plain just over the Gulf of Thailand, but apparently it was just incorrect information (another mistake).
It seems clear that no-one knows where the fuck that plane is, but due to the pressure to find something, ANYTHING to satisfy the media as well as political pressure (not to mention relatives of those missing), anything that could be seen as a clue is pushed out as something important before it's even checked or verified.
At least it can be assumed that those on the flight must be well and truly dead by now, if only because the alternative would be more horrifying...
Account abandoned. I can't fucking spell for shit and Slashdot doesn't even allow time-limited edits of posts. Plus you'
In the US: know where every plane is every second
In Asia: fuck it
In the US: make your nuclear plant's backup pumps work
In Asia: fuck it
In the US: you can't melt down that motherboard here
In Asia: fuck it
Are you seeing a pattern?
These SATCOM devices often have an array of antennas and may well be able to give information on where the last pings came from that reduce the search radius from the possible 2500 miles to something 'reasonable' like ~500 miles (assuming it didn't keep flying for more than an hour after its last ping). The idea being that the satellite knows roughly what area of land is covered by each antenna in its array.
The satcom device does not have to have been on the aircraft.
Bruce Perens.
So I won't bore !!
Providing they store that information. Also for customers who didn't subscribe to the service.
Ignoring all the speculation for a bit, let me present a few completely irrefutable facts that point to a different theory of what happened to the plane.
Fact 1: There are many active volcanoes in this region of the world.
Fact 2: There were virgins on the airplane.
Fact 3: The Great Old Ones have not arisen to destroy us all.
We should thank them for ensuring the continued existence of the human race.
"Two U.S. officials tell ABC News the U.S. believes that the shutdown of two communication systems happened separately on Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. One source said this indicates the plane did not come out of the sky because of a catastrophic failure.
The data reporting system, they believe, was shut down at 1:07 a.m. The transponder -- which transmits location and altitude -- shut down at 1:21 a.m."
-- ABC News, Thursday March 13, 2014
Curiouser and curiouser.
My money is on something like what heppend to flght ZU 522 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...
Malaysia is a country which is filled with lies.
Malaysia tells everyone that it is a very peaceful country. If you believe in what Malaysia says, read the account of this murder - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Shaariibuugiin_Altantuyaa
It's the murder of a lady from Mongolia, and the murder weapon was explosive, specifically C4.
Malaysia also denies that it sponsors Islamic terrorism. If you believe in what Malaysia tells you, read this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur_al-Qaeda_Summit
Al Qaeda had a summit in Kuala Lumpur, the capitol city for Malaysia. Osama Bin Laden attended that meeting, and that summit took place in Kuala Lumpur mainly because the government of Malaysia sponsored it.
If you are a Jihadist, and want to find sponsorship in spreading terrorism, please give Malaysia a visit.
But if you are not a Jihadist, please try to avoid Malaysia, for you may end up just like Ms. Shaariibuugiin Altantuyaa, died by C4.
The on board engine monitoring module is only *ON* when the engine is turned on.
When the engine is off, the transmission module goes to sleeping mode, relies on it's tiny battery backup on keeping the date/time current.
Saying that the module keeps on transmitting AFTER the plane has broken up is not only inaccurate, it's downright irresponsible !
One word: Hollow earth... It's still flying down there...
How long can a 777 float on water?
Yesterday the discussion seemed to center on how bloody expensive it would be to track the planes and how special equipment and etc. would be required. Now everyone seems to understand that messages can come from the planes ... indeed, it would have been trivial (although it would have involved a fee) to record the rest of the plane sensor data.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, and making some magical device to transmit just before an accident ... the folks who maintain the current system record the last 5 positions ... but not release them except when they are paid OR there is an accident. The amount of data storage would be small, and the infrastructure apparently already exists.
Obviously, old enough airframes might not *yet* have the equipment, but rolling them in as engines and/or other major renovations occur should be feasible.
Maybe the plane was stolen!
Pay attention to the stolen plane!
Don't pay attention to Russia and Ukraine!
This is what we know so far, a good summary ...
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
RR Malaysia denied it, making it debunked
If RR world HQ denied it, may be I'll believe it to be debunked.
RR Malaysia ? How much weight does RR Malaysia has ??
Would IBM's Armonk HQ tell IBM Moscow everything ?
Would Boeing Chicago world HQ tell Boeing Beijing everything ?
Are you a troll or are you just stupid ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Why not?
Totally agree.
Sudden depressurisation due to a mechanical failure, pilot unconscious before he can reach for oxygen (low oxygen causes confusion, hard to identify the need to pull out your oxygen mask before its too late), co-pilot asleep so no mask on him. All passengers have oxygen masks come down but door is locked on a code. Only one steward has the code, he may be unconscious like to ZU 522. This is a major problem with the locked cockpit door policy post 2001.
Rolls-Royce, the engine's manufacturers, who said the report was "inaccurate" and that the last engine data was received at 01:07 (17:07 GMT), around 23 minutes before the plane lost contact.
There's no system that would transmit anything from the engines as part of "routine maintenance and monitoring program". The whole story is a hoax, most likely fabricated by someone at WSJ. I won't be surprised to find out it was a prank by some junior WSJ employee. The whole idea that engines would somehow know "altitude and speed of the jet" is ridiculous at best. Altitude, speed and other parameters are important for controlling the engine, but they are always collected by independent sensors installed in airplane itself. And engine control decisions are made by electronics hosted separately in the airframe, not in the engine itself. Engines have no self-sufficient decision-making control circuitry, let alone any active data transmission capabilities.
"What happened to Helios 522" would not turn off transponders.
Completely and categorically.
And they did so before this post was even approved.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
The VHF ACARS data was probably intercepted by the NSA and was the basis for the info provided to the WSJ. Note the original article said "intelligence sources."
The satellite ping BS was essentially a "uh, we didn't want anyone to know we were intercepting ACARS data." They walked that back pretty fast.
I thought Sat links were expensive, but it's only $7/MiB transferred over BGAN/inmarsat. However, they would need the hardware installed and someone would be eating that connection charge - and it if it wasn't Boeing, Malaysian Airlines, or Rolls Royce, then the connection didn't exist. I'm pretty sure you don't get SATCOM hardware for free when you buy your 777, but I have no idea about the specific deal that Malaysia Airlines has.
>>if the jet was at cruising altitude, the likelihood of a phone on board *doing* that is almost nil,
Recall the 911 airliners where people were calling their loved ones before they crashed?
Or is that story maybe also not true?
ATC has RADAR, but usually relies on the secondary return (from the aircraft's transponder), especially if the aircraft is out of reliable primary (skinpaint) return. Out in the South China Sea the 777 was probably beyond primary range, so they would not have seen a return. A primary return doesn't have the altitude encoding (mode A) that the transponder returns, so if the jet disappeared by turning off the transponder, then showed up again later, it wouldn't necessarily get any attention, as it could be any other aircraft operating in international airspace, or light aviation over land. If a primary return was observed, the controller might have noticed the speed to clue them in to the possibility that it wasn't a Cessna, but apparently not.
Just a random though: has anyone checked how long, and over what distance, the plane could fly from its cruise altitude once its engines stop ? If, in such a situation, the pilots tried something similar to what has been done with flight 1549 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549), it might be an interesting approach to try to approximate a circular search zone (rather than an area).
As a coward, I will weigh in here. The US just mentioned they are sending a destroyer to the Indian Ocean. One reason is because that Russia flew some jets near Turkey (nothing new) and the other because they have have referential information that the missing jet flew off course into the Indian Ocean. Referential? I am glad the US will try to rescue the plan and/or wreckage without discussing how they got this intelligence. This is a big step. I hope they find something and the world does not look too deep into how the US knew this.
Just because the transponder was manually turned off, that doesn't prove a terrorist forced the pilot to do it. Maybe it was an inside job.
Why would it make sense for a plane to disappear? A Boeing 777 costs at least $200 million. The parts alone are worth many millions of dollars. Even though many of the parts have serial numbers, there are struggling airlines and outsourced maintenance depots that might be receptive to creatively sourced parts. Even if the plane was shredded for scrap, it's a lot of money for one day of work.
Must I say what no one else will... It's the perfect crime with loads of passengers for ransom or other means. Why blow it up, when you can capture it and fly it to a safe location. Some group has started to think outside the box.
US Dispatches USS Kid to Indian Ocean. Yes the Russians scared Turkey with jets near them, but US has unconfirmed info that the jet went way into Indian Ocean. I think the US was monitoring Facebook traffic from the pilots. Facebook released info under subpoena because pilots bought hard drive space from Google. Conspiracy??????
Smal fire that killed comms, and/or a pilot. Other pilot sleeping and other dying from some sudden cause.
Other theories:
Hijacking,
Pilots stealing the plane,
Some nation accidentally shooting down the plane,
Snakes on the plane, etc.
... keep in mind that many of the passengers are Chinese ... Malaysia doesn't want to start jumping to conclusions to upset them
If you only know MALAYsia, you would know that MALAYsia wants all Chinese to die.
but it was aliens.
Catastrophic failure
One expert told USA TODAY the lack of warnings about a problem aboard the aircraft suggests a catastrophic failure. Steve Marks, a partner at Podhurst Orseck law firm in Miami who has represented relatives of victims in airline crashes, said the Boeing 777 should have been relaying reports of problems — if there were any. A lack of reports could mean a catastrophic failure, perhaps from the plane breaking up.
Mechanical failure
The plane's transponder, which identifies it to civilian radar systems and other nearby planes, was not working. Experts say a massive failure knocking out its electrical systems, while unlikely, could also explain the outage.
Pilot sabotage
Another possibility on why the transponder was not working is that the pilot, or a passenger, likely one with some technical knowledge, switched them off in the hope of flying undetected.
Pilot error
Officials haven't ruled out pilot error, though information provided by Malaysia Airlines shows the crew in the cockpit were very experienced: The flight was piloted by Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, of Malaysia. He has 18,365 flying hours and joined the airlines in 1981. The first officer is listed as Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, of Malaysia. He joined the airline in 2007 and has 2,763 total flight hours.
Terrorism
U.S. officials told USA TODAY over the weekend they were reviewing possible terror links. Terrorism theories were fueled by information that two Iranians who boarded the flight had stolen passports. Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble said neither man has a criminal record. The two had bought tickets to get to Europe, where they hoped to obtain asylum.
The plane kept flying
A U.S. official who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity said Thursday investigators are beginning to explore whether the plane may have flown for another four hours after contact was lost, based on the estimated fuel onboard and the inability of searchers to find wreckage.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/13/theories-malaysian-plane/6378025/
Cases like this show that it's important to make all clock tick the same,
and also to check and ensure they did. Is this check (for NTP, whatever)
in the standard maintenance cycle?
- Hubert
It was 'the Others'.
http://www.reuters.com/article...
"You see, in America, critical thinking is prized right up to the point where an important person(tm) speaks. All subsequent critical thinking is conspiracy nut batshit tinfoil hat wearing wacko pluck-your-banjo-with-your-single-tooth teabagger loony."
What is called "Critical Thinking" is responsible for a steep decline of academic proficiency. Right next to my work place is a room full of people who work on critical thinking theories every day, yet they have a hard time formulating sound arguments, lack any math or formal reasoning skills whatsoever, and pull the content of their qualitative 'research' essays out of their asses.
I'm not saying critical thinking is undesirable in general, but what runs under this label nowadays clearly is. For real critical thinking you need to first learn how to think, learn the state of the art and acquire hard skills, and then you might be able to criticize. Not vice versa.
That's also the problem of the conspiracy nuts. They confuse making up a coherent story with science. And even worse, they usually get the 'coherence' part wrong, too.
Why do you think it crashed in the ocean?
If it was hi-jacked, most likely they landed on a small island using a special-purpose airfield. Maybe an existing field or a whole new field.
Question: why would anyone want a Boeing 777 - are they going to camoflage it and pretend to be another flight or what's going on?
Who is John Galt?
The above is the title of an article I read a few years ago about an airplane repo company, where he spilled quite a few interesting secrets. There was also an "Airplane Repo" show on Discovery.
Might be worth hunting down either/or.
make phone calls? So it might be possible.
I tried using mod points and they were all deleted of the comments that I moderated on this story, what is going on? (And before anyone asks, I do not tried to comment.)
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Phones have gps chips, perhaps data from satellite tracking is stored and could be analysed for position as there must be a data stream out, perhaps only gathered by .mil.
Secondarily imagery from satellites can be used fro tracking. My guess is that the US has a very good idea of the last know position of the aircraft but doesn't want to reveal methods. They are trying to give us hints, however.
Seriously, this is starting to seem like the TV series Lost. Were any actors on board?
I empathize with the families for I have little hope of finding the passengers and crew alive.
BlameBillCosby.com
Explain then how every single commercial airport has a spinny RADAR looking dish on site???
Beta makes me want to kick the designers in the nuts.
You don't really understand the concept of an orbit do you?
Really there had to have been a few cell phones on that plane the NSA should be putting its tracking efforts to good use.
If the ping the plane sent every hour reached 2 or more satellites
and you have the time the ping reached each one. You can find how far from the satellites the plane is. Two give a straight line 3 give a point.The more pings and approximation becomes better. One satellite the number of pings helps and so does speed of the plane
forgetting the fact that every other blip has a transponder signal may make you right, but as soon as reality hits you that nobody else out there over the ocean will be flying without a transponder, I start to smell fish.
Would the flight crew, or even a passenger on the plane, know that the engine has a radio in it? Is it within the realm of possibilities that they took the batteries out of the plane and connected them to the engine's radio to use as a beacon? If the plane crash landed on solid ground, could the emergency radio beacon been destroyed, perhaps due to blast damage? Were any individuals on the plane that had a background in electronics that could MacGyver something up?
Naturally, this has already been confirmed by one satellite (that 370 flew for 4 to 5 more hours and then landed, but it would take two more satellites receiving the aircraft's transmissions, at the same time, to triangulate where it landed at). Obviously, by this time even the dumbest of the dumb (that would be the typical American) should realize this was a sky heist or air heist not a hijacking, most likely involving the AC (aircraft commander) and perhaps both pilots. There was something mighty valuable aboard that bird, and since the cargo manifest included special handling instructions for a container of highly sensitive digital electronics, the rumor that a radically new chip was aboard might be true. If such a chip prototype were being transported on a passenger flight, instead of a private jet, it begs the question whether the Freescale Semiconductor engineers were taking it to China for manufacturing purposes, or to hand off to the Chinese government. We do know that Freescale Semiconductor is owned by the Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group (with investments by AIG) and whenever you have the Carlyle Group, murky things happen, and times one thousand when the Blackstone Group is involved, because, really, the Carlyle Group is simply a subset of the Blackstone Group, as anyone familiar with the two private equity/leveraged buyout firms will attest.
to most of us, so I suspect you are near the end to catch on, normally speaking. It was a sky heist --- something mighty valuable aboard that airliner. Captain, in his home flight simulator, was practising very short landings, and short mountain terrain landings. Starting to clue in, fella?
If a tower connected to a phone sufficiently to ring it. The cell carrier knows which tower it was connected to. Which would dramatically decrease search area if it was true.
Assumption on top of assumption.
Yep. And one of them identified himself by first and last name on his mother's voice mail.
...perhaps you should start paying attention to the International News, not Doofus News USA, for a change? With 24 hours it was obvious what was going on, but as long as you listen to either Fox or Fox Lite (CNN, ABC, CBS, NPR, etc.), you will continue to sound like a douchetard, no offense meant, just stating the obvious here.
ALL THE TECHNICAL DATA suggests sky heist, sky heist, sky heist, as well as the cargo manifest and passenger manifest. Who owns Freescale Semiconductor? Were they working on what was considered a radically new chip, as in computer chip. Were they transporting the prototype, for whatever reason since you'd think they'd use a private jet, aboard Flight 370? (Answers: Blackstone Group and Carlyle Group --- yes --- yes)
Lots of things could explain these things, like a fire in the cockpit, causing the occupants to get out or vacate, and then the fire consuming pieces of equipment slowly. If the plane didn't instantly break up due to something, then fire or fire and hypoxia explain quite a bit.
The 2011 fire in a 777 in Cairo while on the ground is a good reference point, even if the cause may not be the exact same cause.
The systems failing one by one could be fire, or fire with hypoxia.
Imaging a fire (like what happend on the ground in Cairo in 2011 to a 777) in the cockpit, causing the pilots to abandon it.
Not only would a fire likely kill components at distinct times, but it would also likely cause decompression, and then hypoxia for everyone on board.
I'm just asking you as you seem to know how the overall picture works. To me, it makes no sense. I'm just curious as to me it thinks you'd want that guy on ALL the time.
A fundamental aspect of radar operation is that the signal strength diminishes as range^4, due to spherical propagation of both transmitted and reflected wave fronts. Transponders essentially amplify and retransmit the signal (often adding additional information), so the effective attenuation is only proportional to range^2. This makes a very big difference to the maximum tracking range for a given radar system. So, switching off the transponder could easily make the plane disappear from ATC's point of view, with the reflected signal from the aircraft skin being well below the noise floor.
Military radars are designed with uncooperative targets in mind and tend to be much more powerful. Long range early warning radars have typical ranges of a few hundred km, which can still leave a lot of gaps on a regional/global scale.
Everything electrical in the aircraft has to be under the control of the pilots in order to respond to emergencies. For example, an electrical fire might require shutting down the two busses carrying he redundant transponders. Or a generator failure might mean powering down non-critical equipment, which could easily be the transponder if the pilot is already near an airport and in radar contact. There is simply no practical way to protect most equipment from malicious onboard actors.
Facts:
- plane has disappeared from civil radar
- plane has disappeared a little later from military radar
- plane kept connecting back to satellites many hours past disappearing
- speed and heading after disappearing from radar are unknown
- plane has not been located since, nor any debris
- no communications from the plane, its crew or any of its passenger has been received ever since it disappeared from radar
Ok, no let's conclude what this means:
- no debris means the plane did probably not break up, explode or crash
- continued connections from the plane to satellites implies it was operational well past its disappearance
- as planes tend not to disappear into thin air, it is probably still in tact
- planes don't stay in flight for ever, and since it hasn't crashed, it has most probably landed *somewhere*
- we ought to be checking possible landing places and hideaways
- checkout the odd James Bond movie, they had some interesting ideas in that regards
What's striking is that the official media are still pondering the idea that the plane must have crashed when the facts don't give any indication that that's the case. Also the search effort by Digital Global's tomnod platform seems weird as it has the world over search wast areas of ocean open waters. Clearly, that's the most unlikely place of all where the plane might be by now.
Our interstate highway system is dual use. During war, it doubles as landing strips for the air force. One way to search for this plane would be to look for skid marks on a stretch of road in a country close to the water with poor military radar capabilities. Bangladesh comes to mind as a possibility. Evidence of a fuel dump might be the trout in the milk.
The US should consider what embassies in the area could be targeted by this jet without interception and also consider if a carrier group could repel a kamikazi attack using such a large plane. A diving attack might be difficult to stop.
How about the plane being hijacked via a computer virus from a personal computer or even a mobile phone on board?
Flown to Andaman Islands as planned in 1950's, stripped of dead passengers and all seats/interior fittings, fuselage modified to serve as bomber, loaded with Atomic Bomb and flown to.....???? ...where bomb will be dropped.
Just a theory
Here is an interesting conspiracy speculation.... What about North Korea? They don't have rockets that can reach the US mainland to deliver a nuke payload; however, a 777 that is stripped down and outfitted with radar evading tech could do it. All with plausible deniability after a horrific event because the plane was "hijacked".