By David Futrelle
With no plausible official explanation for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 five years ago, and the failures of the assorted attempts to find what survives of the plane in the deep, dark waters of the southern Indian ocean, you may have assumed, as I did, that we would never know what happened to the mystery plane, or why.
In a must-read story in the latest Atlantic magazine, William Langewiesche argues that — despite the bungled investigation of the matter by the corrupt and inept Malaysian government, and the assorted roadblocks government officials have put in the way of other investigators — we actually have a very good idea not only of what transpired in the final hours of that doomed flight, but also why it may have happened.
It looks, in short, like a murder-suicide by an aggrieved middle-aged pilot, depressed and angry over the dissolution of his marriage and possibly also by his inability to attract the attention of several younger women he had become at least slightly obsessed with.
Usually, these sorts of murder-suicides — which are shockingly common — involve a man taking the life of a woman who has left him or otherwise threatened his sense of control over the relationship, and possibly a few other family members, before taking his own life. (Murder-suicides involving women as the murderers are rare.) In the case of MH370, it appears the alleged murderer took out 227 passengers and 12 crew in his act of “revenge” on the world.
Looking skeptically at the official Malaysian government report, and largely ignoring the vast array of spurious conspiracy theories that have sprung up around the plane’s disappearance, Langewiesche examines the sparse but revealing electronic and physical clues left behind by the plane as it veered sharply off its original flightplan and then, after a series of puzzling maneuvers, ultimately flew six more hours in the wrong direction until it ended up crashing violently into the ocean thousands of miles from its intended destination. He concludes, confidently, that the plane
did not catch on fire yet stay in the air for all that time. No, it did not become a “ghost flight” able to navigate and switch its systems off and then back on. No, it was not shot down after long consideration by nefarious national powers who lingered on its tail before pulling the trigger. And no, it is not somewhere in the South China Sea, nor is it sitting intact in some camouflaged hangar in Central Asia. The one thing all of these explanations have in common is that they contradict the authentic information investigators do possess.
What did happen? It appears the plane was deliberately taken down, almost certainly by one of the two men installed in the cockpit at the beginning of the flight — either the pilot, 53-year-old Captain Zaharie Ahmad or his co-pilot, 27-year-old Fariq Abdul Hamid. (There is zero evidence of a hijacking, and Langewiesche argues convincingly that it would have been exceedingly unlikely.)
“[I]t is difficult to see the co-pilot as the perpetrator.” Langewiesche writes.
He was young and optimistic, and reportedly planning to get married. He had no history of any sort of trouble, dissent, or doubts.
But Zaharie, the pilot,
was often lonely and sad. His wife had moved out … By his own admission to friends, he spent a lot of time pacing empty rooms waiting for the days between flights to go by. … He is known to have established a wistful relationship with a married woman and her three children … and to have obsessed over two young internet models … for whom he left Facebook comments that apparently did not elicit responses. … Zaharie seems to have become somewhat disconnected from his earlier, well-established life.
What happened that awful night? Langewiesche suggests that shortly before turning the plane around a hour into the flight, Zaharie either killed or incapacitated his co-pilot, then depressurized the cabin before sending the plane climbing to 40,000 feet in a deliberate attempt to kill the passengers and the rest of the crew.
Langewiesche paints quite a chilling scene of what likely happened:
An intentional depressurization would have been an obvious way—and probably the only way—to subdue a potentially unruly cabin in an airplane that was going to remain in flight for hours to come. In the cabin, the effect would have gone unnoticed but for the sudden appearance of the drop-down oxygen masks and perhaps the cabin crew’s use of the few portable units of similar design. None of those cabin masks was intended for more than about 15 minutes of use during emergency descents to altitudes below 13,000 feet; they would have been of no value at all cruising at 40,000 feet. The cabin occupants would have become incapacitated within a couple of minutes, lost consciousness, and gently died without any choking or gasping for air. The scene would have been dimly lit by the emergency lights, with the dead belted into their seats, their faces nestled in the worthless oxygen masks dangling on tubes from the ceiling.
Zaharie, or whoever was flying the plane, had access to much more effective oxygen masks with hours worth of supplies; after several hours, he could have re-pressurized the plane, confident that he was the only one left alive. Or he could have taken the mask off after putting the plane on its final course and turning on the autopilot, drifting into unconsciousness and ultimately death long before the plane hit the water.
As Langewiesche is well aware, it’s hard to believe that any pilot would do such a monstrous thing. But, as he points out, there have been several similar cases over the last 22 years, including one that seems to have been inspired by MH370.
In 2015, a year after the disappearance of MH370, a young co-pilot named Andreas Lubitz seems to have deliberately crashed Germanwings Flight 9525 into a mountain in the French Alps after locking the pilot out of the plane’s cabin. As I noted at the time, he was known for his explosive rage — and had just been dumped by his girlfriend, and though he was clearly not an incel, he was quickly adopted as a “legitimate SLAYER” and “incel hero” by the regulars on the incel-centric SlutHate forum (which has since morphed into Lookism). Now that Langewiesche has highlighted the romantic and sexual rejection that may have triggered Zaharie’s alleged murderous act, I wonder if the incels will embrace him as well. (If they don’t, it will likely be because of his age; incels like their “heroes” young.)
As I noted in my posts on Lubitz, men often react poorly to romantic rejection, sometimes lashing out with violence — sometimes as the rejecter herself, other times at the world at large. Roughly a third of all female murder victims in the United States are killed by their exes, and “murder/suicides” in which an aggrieved man kills his partner or an ex-partner are so common in the United States that they’re rarely reported as anything more than local news unless, say, an entire family is killed.
Or, in this case, an entire plane full of people.
Toxic masculinity kills.
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@OpposableThumbs
hey thank you for helping me feel heard and not alone
eta & Rhuu ty too but your comment was good and you should feel good dangit
@Mark: there’s no way you can “win” this argument. You’ve screwed up things too badly for yourself. The only smart choice at this point is to take the loss and move on with your life. Don’t even leave any parting shots – just stop posting.
@anon <3
Thank you, anon.
Oh, and is it comic time? I think so!
The Chief Manatee speaks and she proclaims Mark a troll.
I was on the fence, but the boasting about the Chadly male model looks and the hot feminist wife is 100% a troll tell
Hail to the Chief
Well, I am not a troll but I do come from a different point of view on the world than people on this site. But I am NOT a “manosphere” person okay?
For some reason I found the Chad meme particularly funny. You dont have to believe me so whatever, and you have no reason to believe I am telling the truth, but perhaps people are more upfront with things when they are anonymous?
I would of course never say I was good looking to people I know, besides they can already see my awesome jawline that incels would pay tens of thousands of dollars for:-) btw I am joking around here not being totally serious okay?
More seriously reading the incel forums is…… interesting. I feel a mixture of emotions, ranging from having a good laugh reading some of this stuff(sorry but it is pretty funny stuff much of it), to being outraged and disgusted that they literally worship mass shooters and all the Nazi sympathizing B.S.(Hitler would want most of them dead, except perhaps Himmler, he was kinda incel looking).
At the same time I feel sorry for them, like what happened in their lives do drive them to such a pathetic forum? And to have such a warped view of the world? They are right about one thing, people who are better looking get treated better in society. People can be indifferent towards a persons feelings or even hate a person and lust after them at the same time. This is exactly what incels do with beautiful women- hate them but still want to have sex with them.
some men have really never been told that not everything is about them and sometimes they can just …. not talk
@Mark
See, I didn’t think you were a troll because I didn’t see any indication that you were saying these things specifically to provoke a response, which is the only thing that separates trolls from people with genuinely shitty beliefs, but this?
This feels like you’re trying to provoke. And honestly I don’t care whether you genuinely believe the things you say. I’m still going to push back on the casual ableism and casual misogyny because it doesn’t matter why you’re saying and doing these things; what matters is the impact. And the impact on marginalized people when our entire society constantly reinforces these ideas is that we become more oppressed, less believed, more likely to be killed, less likely to get healthcare, etc.
They are very, very wrong in what they believe about this. The statement is true, don’t get me wrong. But spend a little more time there and you’ll see what I mean. They couldn’t be more wrong in their beliefs about how looksism manifests itself in the real world.
https://youtu.be/wtUtXRRbQR0
…crap.
I need to learn how to embed videos.
There’s also no such thing as “incel looking”. They do occasionally post pictures of themselves, and there’s generally nothing wrong with how they look. They just have a warped perception of themselves.
In other words, the very phrase “incel looking” is one that buys into their narrative. When women give them a wide berth it’s not because the angle of their jaw is five degrees off. It’s because incels exude hatred.
What Kupo said.
I had to start giving the kids I babysit time-outs when they “accidentally” hurt each other bc I cant tell when they’re lying or when it actually wasnt intended to be mean, and regardless there are too many occurances (yes I have also had convos & limited rough-housing).
The instances have dramatically decreased under this policy (I am always close and paying attention, so I know if someone got hurt even if they dont come tell me. It’s pretty obvious when one is crying and the other frantically apologizing lol).
Intent matters but the main issue is always gonna be the actual impact.
@Mark: Log off.
ANYWAY returning to the actual post; imo a big part of the reason these guys do this is because they receive the message that (a) being violent over rejection is normal and justified (“crime of passion”) and (b) the victims are less important than them, or will become less important than them (the killer) via this act
I am skeptical of this speculation, but we can stil discuss the general issue.
Speaking of Right Said Fred:
The bassist in this video is none other than Richard Fairbrass, future lead singer of Right Said Fred. Fred is his brother. (The bass on the studio recording was played by Carmine Rojas.)
I am not ill-intentioned, I think the problem is we are debating from different premises.
This is what I believe about feminism-Women should have the same rights as men under the law, and be given the same opportunities by society. I also believe in legal abortion, mostly because the premise for not having legal abortion comes from fundamentalist Christianity and other fundamentalist religious beliefs and not from science or facts, or common sense.
I also have no problem with gays or other LGBT groups, they can do what they want with their lives as long as it doesn’t infringe on my rights, and I don’t see how it does so I am fine with it.
I am a moderate, hated by both sides these days. I am not familiar with all these other feminist ideas which is probably why I offended people here when I had no intention to. So that being said, lets just agree to disagree on some stuff and move on. I will not post here anymore if I am not wanted.
dude you offended people not because you don’t about all feminist concept, but because you came in here, made an assumption and then decided you didn’t need to learn or do a simple google search to figure out your wrong. Then you start being horrible to those with mental health problems and you’ve just made an ass of yourself. I would leave if I was you.
NO ONE WANTS TO DEBATE YOU
Im gonna make this a meme so I can just post it whenever dudes decide to invade *conversations between allies* and turn them into “debates.” The world is not Debate Club, bro. This aint a game for us. Stroll on.
Also Mark
Not because, you know people that can get pregnant own their own bodies, or because anti abortion stuff makes people die. No it’s because it’s based on Christianity.
Your gonna see LGBT people kiss and hold hands. Get over it. Be an adult.
I should not care because this is the internet, but if you want to discuss feelings It does hurt when people say this. I didn’t mention this but even though I am not mentally ill I have very personal and frankly traumatic experiences with mental illness of a very close family member. To be honest, what you are saying about me is absolutely insulting that you would think I am that kind of person. Maybe the way I said something came across as a little callous, actually I think it may be my way of coping personally with the experiences I have had. Sorry you touched a nerve there.
I am mental ill, you more then touch a nerve. I don’t care about your feelings because you clearly didn’t care about mine or anyone else here because your ass couldn’t be bothered to respect or even read the comment policy. I’m reacting to how to presented yourself. You don’t like it, change. It’s not that hard to figure out. I get it enough from dealing with small children, I don’t need this kind of behavior from actual adults that should know better.
Did Mark do the non-literal use thing? Like arguments are “mental illness” or people acted “mental illness”? I’m curious about which one.
Ablism is a weakness mark. You should listen to them.
I would have expected a pilot to know to learn the rules before entering unfamiliar airspace, but what do I know?
The thing is, we’re just pointing out the harm of your words. We’re not calling you ableist. We’re calling your statements ableist.
If you truly care about the people in your life who are mentally ill, you need to take that pain you’re feeling, realize it wasn’t someone attacking you, but the pain of realizing you’ve been doing something ableist all this time, and learn from it.
Turn that feeling inward and use it to understand what a fraction of the feeling mentally ill and disabled people are saddled with every day, from practically everyone, all of them well-intentioned. Realize that you’ve been a part of that. Understand it wasn’t your fault you absorbed some of the negative stigma against mentally ill people, and that we all do because we all are surrounded by it day in and day out.
Then take that knowledge and grow. Learn how using common phrases that disparage mentally ill people and assuming violent offenders are mentally ill harms us. Then put in the work to be better.