Lighthouse

The location (politically) and the fact that it disappeared suddenly with no distress calls. The airline and aircraft involved would pretty much rule out most other causes. I know a lot of people who fly the 777 for Emirates and it is a fantastic piece of machinery. It would take a monumental failure to bring down a 777 in the cruise (the safest part of flight) with little or no warning to the pilots. A major structural failure is possible but the amount of safety built into the design, manufacture and maintenance of a modern Boeing aircraft is incredible. Operated by a fairly reputable airline in a developed industrial country like Malaysia, I just can't see it. Pilots would probably be eating breakfast by then. In the cruise there is very little to do other than check fuel and answer ATC messages. The autopilot is flying the plane and if that gets disconnected there is a very loud audible siren which is impossible to miss. It's not impossible one of them brought down the plane deliberately, it happened with an Egypt Air 767 off the coast of New York in the 90s. When they recovered the black box one of the pilots was heard praying loudly to Allah whilst the other was out taking a wizz IIRC. If it was a collision with a military jet, I think the media would know by now and the authorities would know pretty much exactly where the incident took place. It could be an accidental shoot down and cover up I guess but there's no evidence of that.

Getting back to the o.p. Is the highly anticipated luge run finally being built?

Any repair carried out would have to be approved by Boeing and inspected by their specialists. I'm fully aware of the effects of airline cost cutting on maintenance but a broken wing just isn't something you would f**k with. Airliners have crashed in the past after bodged repairs. A Jumbo went down in Japan once after a repaired bulkhead blew out mid flight and took the tail off. Since then though, maintenance has been massively improved. Sadly, my money is on bomb, although the idea of one getting through an modern 1st world airport like KUL sends a shiver down my spine.

Correct, it hit the tail of an A340 a while back. Any repairs would have been rigorously inspected though, I'd be highly surprised if that proved to be the cause.

I think it's pretty much a given that Leicester are going up and Fulham are going down but who do you want to join them? Half my family is from Burnley, so they are very much a second team for me. For the third team I'd quite like Forest, although they have hit bad form just at the wrong time. As much as I like Adkins I don't really like Reading fans suddenly deciding they are out big local rivals whenever they get near us in the League. Not a massive Derby fan after the whole Davies affair, kicking us off the pitch in the playoffs. I'd rather any of them go up that Bagpuss though. Going down, I don't like Tan and I've already been to Cardiff away. As a team they have added very little to the Premier League. I think I'd quite like Sunderland to join them. Very long away day that anyone who wants to has done 4 times recently. Plus Poyet and we can't beat them for love nor money.

It's possible but I don't think we're quite good enough. We still don't really look like scoring, JRod's goal coming from some pretty poor Palace defending today. Worth a go though.

Good point. I guess we can't really accuse this team of beating the top sides and f**king up the easy games any more. We have now played all our matches against the current bottom 5. Won 8 and drawn 2. We've only lost twice against the teams in the bottom half.

Also we have now done the double over Palace, Fulham and Hull, with Cardiff and Swansea still to play. Have we ever done a double over 4 or 5 teams in a season before?

Professional job. Good defending against an improving Palace team with everything to play for. Only negatives are the injury to Cork and Lambert looking hopeless at the minute. Well done Saints.

We are Southampton! We play the long ball!

Come on Saints.

The average human body acclimatises to jet lag at roughly 1.5 hours a day, so assuming he got back yesterday he is only 1.5 hours out today. That shouldn't affect a player really. Traveling to Khartoum would have probably made it worse, I don't know what their travel itinerary was like. All immaterial now, he's there and on the bench.

Yeah, fair enough. It is highly unlikely but countries test missiles all the time, even in peace time, so it's possible. Another possibility is poorly packaged cargo causing a fire or explosion, similar to an accident involving a South African 747 which crashed into the Indian Ocean. A fire would probably have given the crew some time to declare a mayday and attempt an emergency landing, so that's less likely.

I'm not sure about the NK missile incident but it wont have been them involved this time, even if it is a missile. The aircraft was nowhere near Korea, it would be like the Finns shooting down an aircraft over Portugal.

I always thought Marshall was a decent enough 'keeper. Not sure he would come here to be number 2 to Boruc but a much better reserve than Kelvin or Gazza. Caulker too from Cardiff. Wouldn't have anyone from Fulham, awful squad. I'd definitely have Bony given chance but I can't see Swansea going down.

Wanyama at least wont be jet lagged traveling back from Africa and it's only about a 7 or 8 hour flight to Kenya (I'm assuming it was supposed to be played there). I can't see how a few hours watching the in flight entertainment in first class will have taken that much out of him.

USS Vincennes shot down an A300 it mistook for an Iranian AF F14. Was on it's way to DXB actually.

Nope. 2 each.

There are plenty of surface-to-air missiles out there which can reach that altitude. It's highly unlikely one would be fired in an area with commercial air traffic but possible and similar accidents have happened before. I believe there was one in the Black Sea about 10 years ago.

I doubt that is correct. Flightradar24 is the best flight tracker on the web and the path on there ends well before the flight's last known position. Clear air turbulence isn't going to bring down a 777, it would have to have flown into the core of a thunderstorm cell and I think Malaysian pilots would have enough experience of the weather in SE Asia not to do that. If I had to speculate I would say it was caused by a structural failure/poor maintenance, terrorism or a mid-air collision or shoot down, which authorities are yet to admit.

Statistically its got to be the 2nd safest aircraft ever made and the cruise is also the safest periods of flight, so this is quite a shocking incident. Especially as Malaysia is hardly a third world country any more and I would expect the pilots and maintenance to be relatively good. I just hope foul play isn't involved, it would be very bad for the industry.

Hot but it's not a selfie. Sort it out Tokes.

Boruc in 2006.

Only really watched (repeats of) family guy too. Wont be missed by me personally although it's not as sh*t as ITV, which I literally haven't watched for a minute since they stopped showing F1 back in 2008. Possibly the occasional football game but even their FA Cup highlights show is crap.

I think it was about this time last year we had an 11 a side match at Flemming Park, after West Brom failed to show up. It got me wondering if there would be enough interest for something similar this year. Supposing we played another match the morning before the Newcastle match on Saturday March 29th, who would be interested in that? Would any of the usual suspects be able to organise shirts and a ref?