# Malaysia Airlines Flight 370



## D. Strout (Mar 16, 2014)

It seems among computer people, aviation is a common side interest. That is certainly the case with me, and I was shocked to hear of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Still am, TBH. It is amazing to me that a modern, well-equipped plane could disappear, but now that hijacking is a possibility, it makes a _bit_ more sense. Curious what other folks here think of this incident, and how y'all think it will end up?

Oh, and in the 10,000,000:1 chance that you haven't heard of it, Wikipedia provides an excellent summary of the events to date.


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## HenriqueSousa - WebUp 24/7 (Mar 16, 2014)

I think that the plane was hijacked, and probably they killed already killed the people inside it. And now they will try to send the plane against something.

But lets hope this doesn't happens.

- Henrique


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## D. Strout (Mar 16, 2014)

HenriqueSousa - WebUp 24/7 said:


> I think that the plane was hijacked, and probably they killed already killed the people inside it. And now they will try to send the plane against something.


While this is a possibility, it seems strange that it hasn't happened yet. At this point, the (theoretical) hijackers have had the plane for 8 days. That is way more than enough time to kill/dispose of the passengers, refuel, select a target, and fly it to its destination for the attack. Even if they are just still planning or whatever, they'd have had to land somewhere, and there are very few places a giant plane like a Boeing 777 can land without someone knowing and saying "umm, yo world, we have a plane here".


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## MannDude (Mar 16, 2014)

The best possible scenario is that the plane crashed somewhere and they've just been unable to locate the wreckage. As grim as that sounds, it's a better scenario than it being hijacked. If it was hijacked, landed, and hidden then whatever the intentions would be for the craft in the future would be would likely be much more grim than the loss of lives in a regular crash.

Personally, I think the Malaysian officials are either extremely incompetent or know things that aren't being released to the public yet. Every day it's a new story/scenario theory.

At this point,  I'd believe it entered a wormhole or was abudcted by aliens as much as I believe everything else. It crashed, it landed, it's in Australia, it's in India. Some Chinese terrorist group hijacked it or a pilot was suicidal. Etc, etc.

For what it's worth, in 2003 an American Airlines plane went missing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Boeing_727-223_disappearance). Supposedly it's sitting in the Congo somewhere, as reported by a pilot on a pilot's forum (looking for the source). He says it's just sitting there... in the open. 

If this flight was hijacked and sitting somewhere, we won't see it used for anything malicious for anytime soon. I'd imagine that if it _was_ hijacked, then there won't be a lot of chatter about it. I'd imagine some groups are more capable of keeping lids on things than other groups. Once efforts to locate it die down a bit, and it may be years, then it may very well be used for something very bad.

Time will tell. <shrugs>


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## ChrisM (Mar 16, 2014)

*Random Scenario* 

It could be possible that they hijacked it and landed it on an old WW2/coldwar abandoned airforce base on an island (There are lots of them) and a majority of the passengers are still alive and they are waiting for a perfect time to deliver ransom demands if they haven't already.


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## MannDude (Mar 16, 2014)

Well, airliners of that size generally need 2,800 - 3,000FT of runway to safely land. Lot less for a crash landing. If hijacked, anyone with the resources to organize and carry that out would also have the resources to create a makeshift landing strip somewhere where people _won't_ be looking at (initially, at leasT). Just need a bulldozer and lot of acreage to make a dirt runway that'd be semi-safe to land something like that on.

Like Miller said, there are a ton of old abandoned bases in the area from past wars. Though I think it'd be more likely to land it somewhere else, only issue would be how they would be able to bypass radar detection if that was the case. They're expanding the search to parts of Australia now, and while there would be vast open land available to bring something like this down I just don't see a scenario would they'd not pick up on a craft that size coming in.


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## D. Strout (Mar 16, 2014)

MannDude said:


> Well, airliners of that size generally need 2,800 - 3,000FT of runway to safely land. Lot less for a crash landing. If hijacked, anyone with the resources to organize and carry that out would also have the resources to create a makeshift landing strip somewhere where people _won't_ be looking at (initially, at leasT). Just need a bulldozer and lot of acreage to make a dirt runway that'd be semi-safe to land something like that on.
> 
> Like Miller said, there are a ton of old abandoned bases in the area from past wars. Though I think it'd be more likely to land it somewhere else, only issue would be how they would be able to bypass radar detection if that was the case. They're expanding the search to parts of Australia now, and while there would be vast open land available to bring something like this down I just don't see a scenario would they'd not pick up on a craft that size coming in.


First of all, you're wrong about landing distance. Maybe 2,800 to 3,000 _meters_, but a beast like definitely that won't land in 3,000 _feet_. Furthermore, I doubt many abandoned airbases would have that much runway, not to mention the condition it would be in. It's a big job to restore/build a workable runway, especially since I don't think a 777 would land well on a dirt runway. Most interesting theory I've heard is they landed here, an unfinished airport in Burma. Still dirt though, and enough people around that I doubt its possible.


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## GIANT_CRAB (Mar 16, 2014)

Bermuda Triangle v1.3


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## tchen (Mar 16, 2014)

GIANT_CRAB said:


> Bermuda Triangle v1.3


Where's 1.2?


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## jarland (Mar 16, 2014)

I can't imagine the hijacking scenario at this point unless someone is looking to sell a plane on the black market. Cocaine is better sustained income. At this point I'm placing my bet with more than one layer of incompetence and poor timing. Perhaps even a few lies to cover up incompetence.


Either way I think the families deserve some closure on the event. I don't think there's much hope felt by anyone for their safety at this point, but closure starts the long healing process.


Tbh I'm not sure why I even have opinions on the event. Just wishing everyone the best they can get at this point.


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## sv01 (Mar 16, 2014)

I still don't get it. How as big as plane just disappear from radar, disappear and everyone lost signal.


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## hellogoodbye (Mar 16, 2014)

It didn't just disappear, though the general public was led to believe that at first:

_Civilian and military leaders on Wednesday revealed that they had known for the past four days, but did not publicly disclose, that military radar had picked up signals of what may have been the missing aircraft. It appeared to be flying on a westerly course sharply off its intended flight path to Beijing._

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/world/asia/missing-jet-exposes-a-dysfunctional-malaysian-elite.html?hpw&rref=world

I found the above article to be a very interesting read that helps shed some light on how/why Malaysia is handling the situation in such a manner.

Somewhat related.... apparently this was one of Malaysia Airlines's previous ads.


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## D. Strout (Mar 16, 2014)

@hellogoodbye That image made me lose it. So many things wrong with it. "Journey of epic proportions"...yeah, that's one way to put it. "Wherever you go, no one will ever know" - that's for sure. To me the funniest part is that the pictured plane isn't actually a _Boeing_ 777 - it's an _Airbus_ A380.

With radar, though, it's somewhat complicated. There are two types of radar - "regular" radar that's been around since WWII that actually picks up "echos" bouncing off of objects (e.g. a plane), and "modern" radar that works together with equipment (i.e. the transponder) on board each aircraft. The aircraft originally disappeared off the newer radar system, so basically the transponder shut off. Military radar could still pick it up since it's of the older type, but the various countries that detected it on that radar didn't want to tell anyone because they didn't want the world to know how good their radar is. Slowly information is coming in from those countries, as well as info from the engines (transmitted via satellite). It all points to hijackers purposefully turning off various communications systems, then flying to points unknown.

In case you're wondering why "regular" radar couldn't track it all the way to wherever it is right now, it's either because the plane just got out of range, or they dropped below the minimum altitude radar can cover. Satellite imagery isn't any good because the area to be covered is too large. Engines aren't pinging any more because by this point the plane has either landed and had those pieces shut off, or the plane has crashed and they were disabled that way. That's how a plane can disappear.


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## hellogoodbye (Mar 16, 2014)

D. Strout said:


> @hellogoodbye That image made me lose it. So many things wrong with it. "Journey of epic proportions"...yeah, that's one way to put it. "Wherever you go, no one will ever know" - that's for sure. To me the funniest part is that the pictured plane isn't actually a _Boeing_ 777 - it's an _Airbus_ A380.
> 
> With radar, though, it's somewhat complicated. There are two types of radar - "regular" radar that's been around since WWII that actually picks up "echos" bouncing off of objects (e.g. a plane), and "modern" radar that works together with equipment (i.e. the transponder) on board each aircraft. The aircraft originally disappeared off the newer radar system, so basically the transponder shut off. Military radar could still pick it up since it's of the older type, but the various countries that detected it on that radar didn't want to tell anyone because they didn't want the world to know how good their radar is. Slowly information is coming in from those countries, as well as info from the engines (transmitted via satellite). It all points to hijackers purposefully turning off various communications systems, then flying to points unknown.
> 
> In case you're wondering why "regular" radar couldn't track it all the way to wherever it is right now, it's either because the plane just got out of range, or they dropped below the minimum altitude radar can cover. Satellite imagery isn't any good because the area to be covered is too large. Engines aren't pinging any more because by this point the plane has either landed and had those pieces shut off, or the plane has crashed and they were disabled that way. That's how a plane can disappear.


Thank you! I'm not familiar with aviation technology so that was very informative.  There are so many rumours and theories abound that it's very hard to tell what is real or fake, let alone the finer details of whys and hows. Doesn't help that the governments keep refuting each other's announcements as well.

(if it helps any, that ad is currently being disputed as a tasteless hoax... which I certainly hope it is, because it would just be too damn creepy and unfortunate if it turned out to be real).


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## texteditor (Mar 16, 2014)

hellogoodbye said:


> (if it helps any, that ad is currently being disputed as a tasteless hoax... which I certainly hope it is, because it would just be too damn creepy and unfortunate if it turned out to be real).


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## GIANT_CRAB (Mar 17, 2014)

tchen said:


> Where's 1.2?


Bermuda Triangle v1.2 is lost in Bermuda triangle v1.0000


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## wlanboy (Mar 17, 2014)

With such events I realize that our planet is big.

Still too big to know each place and to observe each place.

After all the terror events the observation of the skies was rapidly amplified in the US and in EU - but not all around the world.

I think it crashed and they now try to cover their asses.


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## D. Strout (Mar 17, 2014)

wlanboy said:


> I think it crashed and they now try to cover their asses.


I agree. I think there is some group - likely some government - that knows more than they're telling.


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## peterw (Mar 17, 2014)

That makes sense. They have old equidment and they made mistakes and now they cannot loose their face and lie to cover it.


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## nunim (Mar 17, 2014)

peterw said:


> That makes sense. They have old equidment and they made mistakes and now they cannot loose their face and lie to cover it.


I disagree, the 777 is quite modern and Malaysia Airlines has a fairly good safety record.  Commercial airline travel is overall extremely safe, however will always be accidents as sometimes shit just happens.  

It'd be extremely hard to land such a large aircraft undetected, and if you did land in some grass strip there's little chance that it'd be taking off again without some major work, which kind of kills the whole "terrorist usage". Not to mention hiding the plane with 200+ PAX while the whole world is looking for it.  Terrorists want planes flying and loaded with fuel, not rusting in some jungle airstrip for future usage.

It took nearly 2 years to recover AF 447 ( the last major 777 crash), which shows that while the Earth is a very big place we will find the plane eventually.  It's quite possible that one of the pilots crashed the plane intentionally however terrorism seems quite unlikely as if someone did bring down the plane they'd be quick to claim responsibility.


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## texteditor (Mar 17, 2014)

nunim said:


> I disagree, the 777 is quite modern and Malaysia Airlines has a fairly good safety record.  Commercial airline travel is overall extremely safe, however will always be accidents as sometimes shit just happens.
> 
> It'd be extremely hard to land such a large aircraft undetected, and if you did land in some grass strip there's little chance that it'd be taking off again without some major work, which kind of kills the whole "terrorist usage". Not to mention hiding the plane with 200+ PAX while the whole world is looking for it.  Terrorists want planes flying and loaded with fuel, not rusting in some jungle airstrip for future usage.
> 
> It took nearly 2 years to recover AF 447 ( the last major 777 crash), which shows that while the Earth is a very big place we will find the plane eventually.  It's quite possible that one of the pilots crashed the plane intentionally however terrorism seems quite unlikely as if someone did bring down the plane they'd be quick to claim responsibility.


AF 447 was an Airbus, not a Boeing 777. The 777's track record is pretty stellar, the actual last major crash of a 777 was Asiana Airlines Flight 214, which only had three fatalities and is one of only three hull-loss crashes accidents the 777 has had (the other two resulted in no deaths, one was an on-ground cabin fire and the other a crash-land caused by iced engines)

That said, the post you quoted was probably referring to their outdated radar equipment, not planes.


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## peterw (Mar 17, 2014)

nunim said:


> I disagree


If the plane is save the pilot Zaharie Ahmad Shah or the copilot Fariq Abdul Hamid had to manipulate the system. The pilot only worked for Malaysia Airlines. According to Malaysia Airlines, Shah joined the airline in 1981 and was certified by Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation as a simulator test examiner. He had 18,365 flying hours.

Hamid, 27, who had 2763 hours of flying, was last week the focus of media reports he invited two women into the cockpit on a flight from Thailand to Malaysia in 2011, where they posed for photos and breaking security regulations.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/missing-malaysia-airlines-plane-police-raid-home-of-lead-pilot-zaharie-ahmad-shah-20140315-34u3n.html#ixzz2wDDgeanj

 


According to new data, the Boeing 777 was still flying at 8.11am, seven hours after it disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Radar signals ­recorded by the Malaysian military appear to show the plane climbing to 45,000 feet, which is above the approved altitude, and making a sharp turn to the right not long after it disappeared from ­civilian radar_._


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## texteditor (Mar 17, 2014)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_South_Dakota_Learjet_crash was a flight that flew for roughly four hours by itself with an incapacitated crew before it ran out of fuel and autopilot shut off, if anyone wants some 'strange plane accidents' reading



edit: I mention it because, like in a few other similar wrecks with depressurized cabins, this accident also ascended above it's approved limits before autopilot kept it up and flying for several hours

edit2: note that this only happens in gradual decompression, likely due to pilots suffering hypoxia during an ascent causing the plane to keep ascending until it levels off.


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## nunim (Mar 17, 2014)

texteditor said:


> AF 447 was an Airbus, not a Boeing 777...


You're absolutely correct, I don't know why I was thinking it was a triple 7, however it did still take nearly 2 years to recover the craft.

In regards to the radar, even if it'd happened off the coast of the US or Europe we'd only have slightly more information, radar coverage over oceans is spotty.


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## MartinD (Mar 17, 2014)

Chris Miller said:


> *Random Scenario*
> 
> It could be possible that they hijacked it and landed it on an old WW2/coldwar abandoned airforce base on an island (There are lots of them) and a majority of the passengers are still alive and they are waiting for a perfect time to deliver ransom demands if they haven't already.


This is pretty much my thoughts too. I reckon it has been stolen and may possibly be used for less than desirable actions at a later stage.


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## D. Strout (Mar 17, 2014)

MartinD said:


> This is pretty much my thoughts too. I reckon it has been stolen and may possibly be used for less than desirable actions at a later stage.


It boils down to this: if it's been hijacked, then it had to be landed somewhere, and there really isn't anywhere that a plane that size could land without someone knowing about it. If it crashed, then how did it happen? If by an inept hijacking attempt, why was there originally so much skill in turning off transponders and navigating by GPS waypoints? If it was hijacked for the _purpose_ of crashing, why has no one taken responsibility? If it was a "normal" (i.e. accidental) crash, how do you explain the behavior observed? Basically, all the explanations put forward so far come with big question marks.


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## MartinD (Mar 17, 2014)

Well yes but then a lot of these questions aren't based on action/reaction. 'Why has no-one taken responsibility?' is an open ended question - no-one needs to take responsibility for the theory to be true. It's not the norm, granted.. but until 911, flying a jumbo jet in to a high-rise office building wasn't the norm either.

It's also true to say that it could have been hijacked and landed somewhere with (or without) people seeing it. Those who've seen it wouldn't necessarily want to let others know if it was done under duress or in fact if those witnessing it had something against Malaysia/China.

There are far too many unknown variables to form any 'most likely' scenarios until more information is known, sadly.


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## MannDude (Mar 17, 2014)

Actually, a Chinese terrorist group did take responsability, but it's not possible to confirm if their claim was legitimate or not.

Now the Malaysians are saying that it flew at an altitude so low that it was able to evade radar. But they don't know if it went north, south, east or west... :huh:

http://my.news.yahoo.com/mh370-flew-low-1-500m-avoid-detection-says-011918423.html

*"Flight MH370 flew for an estimated eight hours and the authorities believe it would have flew over two additional countries besides Malaysia, although it's not clear which ones."*

Who writes this shit? So they pretend to know that it flew at a low level to avoid radar detection, they report this as fact and not as a possibility (read the article)... if it was flying that low then certainly, I'd imagine, someone... somewhere would report it. Even if there are places beneath a flight path they'd not be used to seeing a large craft flying so low.

Another day, nobody knows anything still, at least not publicly.


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## D. Strout (Mar 17, 2014)

MannDude said:


> *"Flight MH370 flew for an estimated eight hours and the authorities believe it would have flew over two additional countries besides Malaysia, although it's not clear which ones."*


Aside from the ridiculousness of them not knowing which countries it was over, I didn't think they had enough fuel to fly on for eight hours.


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## raindog308 (Mar 17, 2014)

hellogoodbye said:


> Somewhat related.... apparently this was one of Malaysia Airlines's previous ads.


Hoax.  That's not even a 777  :lol:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2014/03/16/malaysia-airlines-lose-yourself-ad-is-fake.htm


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## SkylarM (Mar 17, 2014)

D. Strout said:


> @hellogoodbye With radar, though, it's somewhat complicated. There are two types of radar - "regular" radar that's been around since WWII that actually picks up "echos" bouncing off of objects (e.g. a plane), and "modern" radar that works together with equipment (i.e. the transponder) on board each aircraft. The aircraft originally disappeared off the newer radar system, so basically the transponder shut off. Military radar could still pick it up since it's of the older type, but the various countries that detected it on that radar didn't want to tell anyone because they didn't want the world to know how good their radar is. Slowly information is coming in from those countries, as well as info from the engines (transmitted via satellite). It all points to hijackers purposefully turning off various communications systems, then flying to points unknown.



Unfortunately the ATC system is fairly antiquated. The radar systems in use today are basically what you said, the echos bouncing off, and then the transponder is just a way to add information to a signal, such as altitude, speed, Aircraft type, call sign, and filed flight path (this is called a Mode C Transponder). The difference is literally a dot on a screen or a dot with an associated Data Tag. 

I'm not familiar with the airspace down there, but a great example is flying over the Atlantic from New York to London-Heathrow. You hit a point where you are so far from land that you are no longer on any radar systems, and instead are being "tracked" by a flight service station. Basically you call in at specified waypoints and provide information relating to your altitude, latitude, longitude, current speed, and current heading to next waypoint. There is no radar here, just someone tracking aircraft based on information the pilot passes to the controller. The spot in where they lost communications is likely a similar area (just by looking at a map, seems likely). Once you disable your transponder, you still have that BLIP on a radar, if there is a radar, but none of the other information that a data tag would include.

No radar services means you could fly wherever you want until you hit controlled airspace, and then your "echo" would show up on radar again. At this point you can likely fudge the system by flying low enough that your surroundings interfere with the echo (hills, etc), or low enough in lighter-controlled airspace that you are below an ATC "floor". This floor is uncontrolled air space, and your ATC radar would have any data BELOW said point disabled on their scope to prevent unnecessary clutter from your average VFR traffic flying below controlled airspace.

Seems unlikely that they would actually get anywhere without anyone knowing they landed, or without SOMEONE seeing SOMETHING on a scope at one point or another. Even when flying below controlled airspace, there's likely a system somewhere that is pulling data and still tracking these blips, but you'd have to know what the blip is based on historical data from the rest of the flight (which gets lost when you don't know exactly where the aircraft started flying to outside of the initial uncontrolled airspace over the water).

Not sure how a noisy 777 would be able to fly under controlled airspace without someone hearing or seeing a plane flying in a manner that isn't typical of other traffic in the area. Being so far out from the aircraft's disappearance I'd have expected someone to come forward by now. Even IF the aircraft was somehow able to fly at a low enough altitude to slip under radar services, it seems unlikely that nobody would notice a 777 landing. You'd hear it, you'd feel it. You'd know something was wrong. It's one thing to fly a few thousand feet in the air below atc service, it's another to actually LAND an aircraft somewhere that doesn't get those types of planes. Seems likely it's at the bottom of an ocean somewhere.

That specific flightpath it was scheduled to fly would put it potentially in range of flying as far North west as Pakistan. It's about 2300 nautical miles. HOWEVER, you're not factoring in flying against the winds, or flying at a lower altitude resulting in more drag and faster fuel consumption. If it somehow isn't under the ocean and somehow happened to land somewhere, I doubt it would have made it more than 1000-1500 nautical miles from it's origin airport best case scenario.

Just seems unlikely, given the information that is publicly available, that it would have made it anywhere without at least some form of detection at one point or another, being radar, military radar, civilian detection (if it was indeed flying low), or otherwise.


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## D. Strout (Mar 17, 2014)

SkylarM said:


> Just seems unlikely, given the information that is publicly available, that it would have made it anywhere without at least some form of detection at one point or another, being radar, military radar, civilian detection (if it was indeed flying low), or otherwise.


Indeed, but if someone's not telling...


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## MannDude (Mar 20, 2014)

*BREAKING NEWS*

THIS JUST IN: No one, anywhere, knows anything... still.

Actually there was an article saying that they may have spotted something off the coast of Australia that may be the wreckage and they're sending a ship out, but it could be anything at this point.


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## peterw (Mar 21, 2014)

The search action has started:


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