THE AIRLINER – AT 10:32 A.M. ET:   There is intrigue, whether justified or not, surrounding the disappearance of a Malaysian airliner yesterday, with 239 people on board.  It appears the plane may have crashed off the coast of Vietnam, with no mayday message or any other communication from the cockpit.  From Fox:

Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said there was no indication that the pilots had sent a distress signal, suggesting that whatever happened to the plane occurred quickly and possibly catastrophically.

China's state-run news agency Xinhua reported the plane was lost in airspace controlled by Vietnam, and never made contact with Chinese air traffic controllers. There have been no reports of a plane crashing into Chinese waters, and China is assisting the airline in its search for the plane.

Vietnamese air force planes on Saturday spotted two large oil slicks in the area where the plane vanished in the first sign that the aircraft carrying 239 people on board, including two infants and 12 crew members, had crashed.

The slicks were each between 6 miles and 9 miles long. There was no confirmation that the slicks were related to the missing plane, but the statement said they were consistent with the kinds that would be produced by the two fuel tanks of a crashed jetliner.

COMMENT:  Recovering wreckage from underwater is extremely difficult and sometimes impossible.  It was, however, done well in the case of TWA Flight 800, which crashed off the coast of Long Island in the 1990s.  That, too, went down without a distress signal from the cockpit.  The probable cause, which is still mired in controversy, was, according to the NTSB, an explosion in the center fuel tank. 

We must wait for answers.  But in an age of terror and hijackings, we aren't wrong to speculate about the possibility of an intentional crash. 

March 8, 2014