Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Scenario 4

A government agency activated the uninterruptable autopilot.

This is the last of the southern arc scenarios I’ll be discussing that deal with the mysterious disappearance of Flight MH 370. This one has a slightly different wrinkle. Here a government agency, responsible for the origin or destination airfield, is alerted that one of their flights is behaving outside the parameters of its flight plan. This is demonstrated on civilian and or military radars and efforts to contact the airliner have failed. Suspecting that a hijacking has taken place the agency activates the uninterruptable autopilot. The good news is that the population at large is potentially saved from a catastrophe such as 911. The bad news is that the airliner, crew and passengers depart for parts unknown until the fuel runs out.

Conclusion: It is impossible to say if any of these scenarios played out in the case of MH 370. There are still too many holes that need to have the assumptions replaced with facts.

The critical assumptions for the Southern Arc hypothesis are:

1. There was an attempted hijacking of the aircraft.
2. It failed
3. The Airliner took the Southern arc.
4. The aircraft was equipped with some version of an uninterruptible autopilot.
5 It activated taking the airliner out over the Pacific Ocean.

The critical assumptions for the Northern Arc hypothesis are:

1. There was a hijacking attempt.
2. It Succeeded
3. It followed the Northern arc to parts unknown.


I have written these scenarios since it became widely believed that flight MH 370 crashed in the Pacific Ocean. All of these fit the facts better than scenarios postulating an idiot hijacker, mechanical malfunction or suicide scenarios. I did not make these up but took the information in a National Geographic article and used it as a starting point. In that article it is stated in words to the effect “…that technology exists for a pilot, sensors or a government agency to take control of an airliner and prevent an incident such as occurred on 911." Each of these scenarios involves an uninterruptable autopilot activated by a sensor(s), the pilot or a government agency.

If any of the four scenarios is correct it will show that while the technology has progressed, it has not progressed to the point where an uninterruptable autopilot could wrest control of an airliner from rogue pilots or hijackers and safely land it. I’m confident that in the aftermath of MH 370 this technology and fielding will be given a fast track.