hope this fits here - the iranian passengers: something that i never read about in the tons of online disussions about mh370 but as suspicious as the ukrainians and the russian you discussed on your blog.
as far as we know there were two passengers from iran with stolen european passports on board. they had tickets to europe (amsterdam ???) via peking. whats puzzeling me is, that their plan flying from peking to europe would not have worked.
europe is the so called schengen-area, a collective travel sphere with no visa needed for traveling from one schengen-country to another. but the borders of the schengen-area are highly protected. people from most countries in the world need valid visa to enter the schengen-area, national visa for years long stay for working, for living in a mariage or studying. or schengen-visa for max. 90 days a year for holidays. us-citizens do not need a schengen-visum, but iranians do. from embassy in tehran. europe is very restrictive with visa for people from countries with a high asylum-seeker-rate. like iran. and i know that german embassy in tehran has a years long waiting list. for eg. student visa two years.
the schengen rules tell the airlines that they have to fly somebody without a valid visa back to where he came from on airline’s cost. so the airlines flying into schengen-area have to check visa and passport before departure. its daily routine on EVERY flight into schengen-area. they will identify a stolen european passport and a missing or faked visa. we have a well working online system for that.
by the way that is the reason why so many refugees die on mediterranean sea when trying to enter european ground - there is no legal way for them to enter european ground via airline for asking for asylum.
the stolen passports tell me that the two iranians did not have a valid visa for europe. maybe they would have been stopped to enter peking transit area by china. they would have been DEFINETLY stopped at entering the plane to europe.
the visa-schengen-airline-check-issue is well known in iran with relatives living in europe. so why did they try? trying a definetly not working way - i presume there is something deeper in that issue. was it a cover story for something else? were the iranians activeley involved in the mh370-mystery?
(sorry for my bad english. i am not a native speaker. apologies if i accidently sound rude or use wrong grammar. following your blog, the netflix movie and this podcast already for a looong time and learned aa lot about mh370 - thank you for yor amazing work!)
Very interesting insight, thank you. It would be an interesting project for someone to reach out to experts in European immigration, especially of the illegal variety, and ask them whether this seems very strange to them. /JW
thx, keelie and jeff. i live in germany as my name states and i am blessed with friends from middle east and othe countries around the world. and i am interested in politics, the refugee situatian is a very big issue in germany, in europe. thats why i am a bit informed about the rules and problems.
yes malaysia was extremely relaxed. very alarming. and i heared in a german forum about mh370 that china was very sensitive about identity of people flying to china. but the checks i was talking about are not checks by local airport authorities, malaysia or cchina. the airline itself has to make the passport- and visa- checks when boarding. a second check after the airport check.
and schengen-visa are not stored in the intepol database, we have an own database with all valid visa that the airlines have to use for checking the visa shown at their check-in. plus they have to check the interpol-database for stolen passports.. and, it MAY be hard for asian people to see differences between an 19 year old iranian and a 69 year old european in the passport. but the KLM-persons definetly will. (no racism intended!)
"stating to officials that you are going to stay with family"" - yes, one of them wanted to visit his mother in germany. no, that doesnot help. to obtain a schengen-visa they had to proof german tehran embassy that they definetlly will return to iran, a test that many people do not surpass. especially iranians. and they had to proove that they have the money for living in germany. more than 10000euro. or an invitation from someone in germany with the guaranty to pay everything, living, deseases, deportation in case of unallowed overstay - easily over 200000 euros. one has to earn over 4000 euro per month to be allowed to give such a guaranty, a so called "verpflichtungserklärung". non of my freinds earn enough money for that. so it may have been a prolem for his mother, too. (far as i know, the german BILD-zeitung made an interview with her about her son and mh370. have nit read it yet. maybe there one can find infos about his visa. but why should he use a stolen passport when having a valid visa to germany? so i believe he ddidn't have a visa.)
jeff, ask the press office of the german embassy in washington or of lufthansa or of klm for a proof of my infos - i understand that they need an independend proof. and there is a german forum for foreigners affairs called http://www.info4alien.de where members of border police, german embassies, foreigners' registration office, lawyers and informed people help with everything around foreigners problems in germany. they speak english too. feel free to check my infos there too.
"ask them whether this seems very strange to them." - yes, i fully agree. my observation of the risks of the iranians' plan is ment as an staring point. you digged deep into the ukrainians and russian. i think the iranians are worth a similar deep dive. IF tere really something is, i don't know.
"obviously they got through KLIA checks and were on board MH370" - yes, i tried to explain that these checks are different from the check on entering the KLM plane to amsterdam in peking they had tickets for. it wpould have been a check by KLM at boarding, after chinese border controls.
btw, here the iranians tickest are shown (di not check the validity of the netries, the site):
"danke schön" - gern geschehen ;) yes, enjoy the weekend, no need for a hurry."may not have known about these issues" yes, but since the mother of Pouria Nour Mohammad MEHRDAD lived in germany and they should have traveld between iran and germany before like many other iranians around them (we have a huge iranian exiilium community in germny) this should be a familiar issue. thoug this has to be checked, its not proofed until now by me.(and this famikarity with visitigng europe puzzles me. why did they try to travel without visa when they already did before? IF they realy had no visa - i concluded this frorom the fact they used stolen european passports but entered malaysia with their iranian passports, have to check malyasian visa requirements for iranins... )
"Do you think Iran organised the hijacking of MH370?" - i don`t think ANYTHING about what happend to MH370. i am open to every explanation as long as it is a valid one backed by facts. unfortunately we have extremly rare facts. to me also the radar- and inmarsat-data are in doubt. until today i see no prooven fact, only possibilities and hypotheses.
i only wanted to give the hint that the plan of the iranians of going to germany wouldn`t have worked. why they tried it that way, who knows. naive try, bad advice or an IRGC-manouver - who knows. to me its a hint to look deeper into the iranans' story. MAYBE there is something to find. please have in mind that TODAY Islamic republic of iran IRI is an alley to russia. AND china. don`t know the situation in 2014 but today china helps IRI to live with the eu- and us-sanctions and IRI builds drones and other weapons for russians war on ukraine. so, yes, to me it is a POSSIBILITY that the two iranians, the two ukrainians and the russian were the team that hijacted MH370. if so a RUSSIAN team, IRI is known for terroristic acts on iranian diaspora but not for such actions. so if it was a russian lead team. (to be clear, i am talking about the mullah regime in iran, not the brave people in iran who want peace, freedom and democrocy, the 80% against the regime who die on iran's streets in their brave fight for freedom. please never mix them up)
"Do you know if some time can be given so that issues can be investigated and resolved to allow onward travel? " - sorry, due to myy bad english i am not shure if i understand your question right. if you want to ask if the two iranians could have solved their no schengen visa - problem at peking airport or in malaysia or dubai whre i guess they came from if i recall it right, then the answer is NO. eu-visa have to be asked for in eu-embasies in home contriy. iranians have to ask for visa at european embassy in iran, eg the german or austrian or french in tehran. and there is a long time waiting for such a visa. us citicens have to ask for eu-visa at eu-embassies in usa and so on.
"Your English is very good" - VERY kind, again. thank you.
" I didn't know they had travelled to Dubai first" - yes, the question how they travelled to malaysia is imho a very good question and part of the diving deeper into their story that i recommend here.
"very thin line between politics and racism" - i was only refering to my "all easians look the same/all PoC look the same/ all europeans look the same/ all nnn look the same" -you caan read this as racism for shure, but i do not mean my statement as racism.
"pretty depressing conversations" - same here. in germany the nazis are about to return, they call themselves AFD - Alternity for Germany. we have MASSIVE discussions about refugees and its a nightmare for me. so i understand you well here. y venceremos!
Ok because that’s the only places that has mentioned him being mentally unstable. And if he would have been mentally unstable that would have been one more red flag other then the simulator points. All other interviews that i have heard has said that nothing was wrong with him, but the psyche can also be desiving. Some people are really good at hiding a depression or their problem. It would be of intresting to know if he has shown any what so ever clues to being suicidal like givning away personal things, not including himself when talking about the future. I also wonder what the rutines were at maylisia airlines around mental health with seeing a doctor or psychologist to clear them to fly. Was that something the pilots had to do like maybe once a year or so. I mean that would be intresting to find out when the last time was that he was cleared to fly, I mean wether you want it or not he is one puzzle piece in this. He might have had absolutly nothing to do with this or something or everything to do with it.
In these it is discussed that zaharies life was falling apart. His marrige was ending and he was depressed and walking rounds in his apartment just waiting for hos next flight. That’s more reason to Zacharie
Not sure What happend but his flight sim is not the only thing that was wierd with him and also as is also presented in the poddcasts
Airlines would ground a pilot if it was brought up that a doctor had said you wasn’t mentally stable and able to fly.
Maybe another reson not to say Anything to your Bosses at the airline of that was the case with him
Thanks for this, Linnea. I don't know where these podcasts got their information, but I haven't seen any named sources indicating that Zaharie was under stress. Instead, everyone who has come forward to describe their first-hand knowledge of Zaharie suggests that he was happy and psychologically stable. If you have a primary source that suggests otherwise I would be more than happy to review it. Thanks!
Thanks for answearing no i just heard it there in those podcasts, here are the sources that they link to, to say that he was depressed and at bad mental health
Just wanted to say: It's heartening to see your continued enthusiasm.
Unfortunately I was unable to comment so far, but I will try to catch up.
I would comment under the episode in question (where the comment belongs to) but will you detect new comments under archived episodes at this site here ?
Hey Peter, Glad you've been finding the show worthwhile! I'm planning to get things rebooted fairly soon, in the next couple of weeks -- watch this space. In the meantime, I get notified about all new comments, whereever they land, so if you write a comment I'll see it.
Looking forward to more info on SDU reboot. It would seem this would be one of the easier things to replicate. What happens when an SDU is turned off and turned back on? Why was the flight id info missing after the reboot? Is it possible to turn on one part of the sdu and leave part of it off line? Is it possible to completely fabricate a sdu path? How secure were Inmarsat’s servers? If pings were false, where were the places the plane could have gone based on fuel range? What other landing sites in Russia might have been possible? It always seemed that Inmarsat data was accepted at face value.
hope this fits here - the iranian passengers: something that i never read about in the tons of online disussions about mh370 but as suspicious as the ukrainians and the russian you discussed on your blog.
as far as we know there were two passengers from iran with stolen european passports on board. they had tickets to europe (amsterdam ???) via peking. whats puzzeling me is, that their plan flying from peking to europe would not have worked.
europe is the so called schengen-area, a collective travel sphere with no visa needed for traveling from one schengen-country to another. but the borders of the schengen-area are highly protected. people from most countries in the world need valid visa to enter the schengen-area, national visa for years long stay for working, for living in a mariage or studying. or schengen-visa for max. 90 days a year for holidays. us-citizens do not need a schengen-visum, but iranians do. from embassy in tehran. europe is very restrictive with visa for people from countries with a high asylum-seeker-rate. like iran. and i know that german embassy in tehran has a years long waiting list. for eg. student visa two years.
the schengen rules tell the airlines that they have to fly somebody without a valid visa back to where he came from on airline’s cost. so the airlines flying into schengen-area have to check visa and passport before departure. its daily routine on EVERY flight into schengen-area. they will identify a stolen european passport and a missing or faked visa. we have a well working online system for that.
by the way that is the reason why so many refugees die on mediterranean sea when trying to enter european ground - there is no legal way for them to enter european ground via airline for asking for asylum.
the stolen passports tell me that the two iranians did not have a valid visa for europe. maybe they would have been stopped to enter peking transit area by china. they would have been DEFINETLY stopped at entering the plane to europe.
the visa-schengen-airline-check-issue is well known in iran with relatives living in europe. so why did they try? trying a definetly not working way - i presume there is something deeper in that issue. was it a cover story for something else? were the iranians activeley involved in the mh370-mystery?
(sorry for my bad english. i am not a native speaker. apologies if i accidently sound rude or use wrong grammar. following your blog, the netflix movie and this podcast already for a looong time and learned aa lot about mh370 - thank you for yor amazing work!)
Very interesting insight, thank you. It would be an interesting project for someone to reach out to experts in European immigration, especially of the illegal variety, and ask them whether this seems very strange to them. /JW
thx, keelie and jeff. i live in germany as my name states and i am blessed with friends from middle east and othe countries around the world. and i am interested in politics, the refugee situatian is a very big issue in germany, in europe. thats why i am a bit informed about the rules and problems.
yes malaysia was extremely relaxed. very alarming. and i heared in a german forum about mh370 that china was very sensitive about identity of people flying to china. but the checks i was talking about are not checks by local airport authorities, malaysia or cchina. the airline itself has to make the passport- and visa- checks when boarding. a second check after the airport check.
and schengen-visa are not stored in the intepol database, we have an own database with all valid visa that the airlines have to use for checking the visa shown at their check-in. plus they have to check the interpol-database for stolen passports.. and, it MAY be hard for asian people to see differences between an 19 year old iranian and a 69 year old european in the passport. but the KLM-persons definetly will. (no racism intended!)
"stating to officials that you are going to stay with family"" - yes, one of them wanted to visit his mother in germany. no, that doesnot help. to obtain a schengen-visa they had to proof german tehran embassy that they definetlly will return to iran, a test that many people do not surpass. especially iranians. and they had to proove that they have the money for living in germany. more than 10000euro. or an invitation from someone in germany with the guaranty to pay everything, living, deseases, deportation in case of unallowed overstay - easily over 200000 euros. one has to earn over 4000 euro per month to be allowed to give such a guaranty, a so called "verpflichtungserklärung". non of my freinds earn enough money for that. so it may have been a prolem for his mother, too. (far as i know, the german BILD-zeitung made an interview with her about her son and mh370. have nit read it yet. maybe there one can find infos about his visa. but why should he use a stolen passport when having a valid visa to germany? so i believe he ddidn't have a visa.)
jeff, ask the press office of the german embassy in washington or of lufthansa or of klm for a proof of my infos - i understand that they need an independend proof. and there is a german forum for foreigners affairs called http://www.info4alien.de where members of border police, german embassies, foreigners' registration office, lawyers and informed people help with everything around foreigners problems in germany. they speak english too. feel free to check my infos there too.
jeff, "reach out to experts in European immigration" - here are the eu-laaws regulation the thing:
the eu visa codex: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32009R0810&qid=1713636434483
and the schengen contract:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R0399&qid=1713636366789
"ask them whether this seems very strange to them." - yes, i fully agree. my observation of the risks of the iranians' plan is ment as an staring point. you digged deep into the ukrainians and russian. i think the iranians are worth a similar deep dive. IF tere really something is, i don't know.
"obviously they got through KLIA checks and were on board MH370" - yes, i tried to explain that these checks are different from the check on entering the KLM plane to amsterdam in peking they had tickets for. it wpould have been a check by KLM at boarding, after chinese border controls.
btw, here the iranians tickest are shown (di not check the validity of the netries, the site):
https://www.mh370wiki.net/Passenger:MOHAMMADREZA_Delavar_Seyed
https://www.mh370wiki.net/Passenger:MEHRDAD_Pouria_Nour_Mohammad
"danke schön" - gern geschehen ;) yes, enjoy the weekend, no need for a hurry."may not have known about these issues" yes, but since the mother of Pouria Nour Mohammad MEHRDAD lived in germany and they should have traveld between iran and germany before like many other iranians around them (we have a huge iranian exiilium community in germny) this should be a familiar issue. thoug this has to be checked, its not proofed until now by me.(and this famikarity with visitigng europe puzzles me. why did they try to travel without visa when they already did before? IF they realy had no visa - i concluded this frorom the fact they used stolen european passports but entered malaysia with their iranian passports, have to check malyasian visa requirements for iranins... )
"Do you think Iran organised the hijacking of MH370?" - i don`t think ANYTHING about what happend to MH370. i am open to every explanation as long as it is a valid one backed by facts. unfortunately we have extremly rare facts. to me also the radar- and inmarsat-data are in doubt. until today i see no prooven fact, only possibilities and hypotheses.
i only wanted to give the hint that the plan of the iranians of going to germany wouldn`t have worked. why they tried it that way, who knows. naive try, bad advice or an IRGC-manouver - who knows. to me its a hint to look deeper into the iranans' story. MAYBE there is something to find. please have in mind that TODAY Islamic republic of iran IRI is an alley to russia. AND china. don`t know the situation in 2014 but today china helps IRI to live with the eu- and us-sanctions and IRI builds drones and other weapons for russians war on ukraine. so, yes, to me it is a POSSIBILITY that the two iranians, the two ukrainians and the russian were the team that hijacted MH370. if so a RUSSIAN team, IRI is known for terroristic acts on iranian diaspora but not for such actions. so if it was a russian lead team. (to be clear, i am talking about the mullah regime in iran, not the brave people in iran who want peace, freedom and democrocy, the 80% against the regime who die on iran's streets in their brave fight for freedom. please never mix them up)
"Do you know if some time can be given so that issues can be investigated and resolved to allow onward travel? " - sorry, due to myy bad english i am not shure if i understand your question right. if you want to ask if the two iranians could have solved their no schengen visa - problem at peking airport or in malaysia or dubai whre i guess they came from if i recall it right, then the answer is NO. eu-visa have to be asked for in eu-embasies in home contriy. iranians have to ask for visa at european embassy in iran, eg the german or austrian or french in tehran. and there is a long time waiting for such a visa. us citicens have to ask for eu-visa at eu-embassies in usa and so on.
"Your English is very good" - VERY kind, again. thank you.
" I didn't know they had travelled to Dubai first" - yes, the question how they travelled to malaysia is imho a very good question and part of the diving deeper into their story that i recommend here.
"very thin line between politics and racism" - i was only refering to my "all easians look the same/all PoC look the same/ all europeans look the same/ all nnn look the same" -you caan read this as racism for shure, but i do not mean my statement as racism.
"pretty depressing conversations" - same here. in germany the nazis are about to return, they call themselves AFD - Alternity for Germany. we have MASSIVE discussions about refugees and its a nightmare for me. so i understand you well here. y venceremos!
keelie- " if that's okay." - for sure! i am here for disussing, learning, not for making statements. feel free to aks, whatecer you want.
"YouTube sheeple" , HAHAHA, NICE. understand ... so jeff and all others, no trolling intended in any of my posts here.
Ok because that’s the only places that has mentioned him being mentally unstable. And if he would have been mentally unstable that would have been one more red flag other then the simulator points. All other interviews that i have heard has said that nothing was wrong with him, but the psyche can also be desiving. Some people are really good at hiding a depression or their problem. It would be of intresting to know if he has shown any what so ever clues to being suicidal like givning away personal things, not including himself when talking about the future. I also wonder what the rutines were at maylisia airlines around mental health with seeing a doctor or psychologist to clear them to fly. Was that something the pilots had to do like maybe once a year or so. I mean that would be intresting to find out when the last time was that he was cleared to fly, I mean wether you want it or not he is one puzzle piece in this. He might have had absolutly nothing to do with this or something or everything to do with it.
I think you should check out this https://youtu.be/DMvnq46hee8?si=grUlb14Rmx8Icpa5
This https://youtu.be/EWpd9UE9RXo?si=A1eRZyzCrrQpgS7E
And this podcast https://youtu.be/Xmk3dZDfHLI?si=KnphcL_IyN-q7O_O
In these it is discussed that zaharies life was falling apart. His marrige was ending and he was depressed and walking rounds in his apartment just waiting for hos next flight. That’s more reason to Zacharie
Not sure What happend but his flight sim is not the only thing that was wierd with him and also as is also presented in the poddcasts
Airlines would ground a pilot if it was brought up that a doctor had said you wasn’t mentally stable and able to fly.
Maybe another reson not to say Anything to your Bosses at the airline of that was the case with him
Thanks for this, Linnea. I don't know where these podcasts got their information, but I haven't seen any named sources indicating that Zaharie was under stress. Instead, everyone who has come forward to describe their first-hand knowledge of Zaharie suggests that he was happy and psychologically stable. If you have a primary source that suggests otherwise I would be more than happy to review it. Thanks!
Thanks for answearing no i just heard it there in those podcasts, here are the sources that they link to, to say that he was depressed and at bad mental health
'Retreated into a Shell' MH370 pilot’s wife told how he spent all his time on his flight simulator and stopped talking to her in the weeks before crash, The Sun: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9334710/mh370-pilot-wife-simulator-crash-lonely/
Daughter of MH370 pilot raised alarming questions about his state of mind weeks before the plane’s disappearance, The Sun: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9331959/daughter-mh370-pilot-state-mind-planes-disappearance/
Unfortunately the Mail and the Sun are quite irresponsible outlets; Zaharie's family has denied saying these things: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/family-friends-deny-daily-mail-report-mh370-pilot-230030837.html
@Jeff and Andy:
« You only know what you got when it's gone ... »
When will season 2 start (approximately) ?
Just wanted to say: It's heartening to see your continued enthusiasm.
Unfortunately I was unable to comment so far, but I will try to catch up.
I would comment under the episode in question (where the comment belongs to) but will you detect new comments under archived episodes at this site here ?
Hey Peter, Glad you've been finding the show worthwhile! I'm planning to get things rebooted fairly soon, in the next couple of weeks -- watch this space. In the meantime, I get notified about all new comments, whereever they land, so if you write a comment I'll see it.
Looking forward to more info on SDU reboot. It would seem this would be one of the easier things to replicate. What happens when an SDU is turned off and turned back on? Why was the flight id info missing after the reboot? Is it possible to turn on one part of the sdu and leave part of it off line? Is it possible to completely fabricate a sdu path? How secure were Inmarsat’s servers? If pings were false, where were the places the plane could have gone based on fuel range? What other landing sites in Russia might have been possible? It always seemed that Inmarsat data was accepted at face value.