Missing Malaysia Airlines jet carrying 239 triggers Southeast Asia search

[lalitv74]

Aircraft maker must try to extend the security when plane is on the air, such as installing an emergency system, that can be activated by airlines. It's more than a GPS or signals captured by radar.. It's a close system, similar to the government in usa has now asked phone companies to locate stolen phones.. Just rely on a transponder, that got to be activated by a human isn't a means of security at all, same thing with blackbox..Inherently this is a huge risk..

Edited March 19, 2014 by lalitv74

[sunshine51]

Have they found this aeroplane yet?

No. Easier to prove the existance of the Higgs Boson than what happened or where is MH370.

[Scott]

More off-topic and troll posts removed.

[khwaibah]

Missing Malaysia MH370: Search planes grounded by 'red tape'

18 March 2014 Last updated at 12:17 GMT

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26629937

[webfact]

MH370 search area expanded to 2.24 million sq miles



KUALA LUMPUR: -- The total area covered by the mission to locate missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft MH370 has expanded to a daunting 2.24 million square nautical miles, as search and rescue (SAR) operations enters its 11th day.

Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said both the northern and southern corridors of the SAR operation have been divided into seven quadrants each, with each quadrant measuring 160,000 square nautical miles.

“This is an enormous search are, and it is something Malaysia cannot possibly search this area on its own.

He praised countries which have come forward to offer assistance and support the SAR operations.

He said on the logistical front, the SAR operations team has been working to narrow the search corridors, focusing on four main tasks.

The tasks are: gathering information from satellite surveillance; analysis of surveillance radar data, increasing air and surface assets, and increasing the number of technical and subject matter experts.

Hishammuddin said the Royal Malaysian Navy has deployed two more ships to the southern corridor, including a Super Lynx helicopter which can operate from either ship.

This brings the total number of Malaysian ships deployed to the southern corridor to four, with two Super Lynx helicopters.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/mh370-search-area-expanded-2-24-million-sq-miles/


-- Thai PBS 2014-03-19

[NeverSure]

the cargo comprised 3-4 tons of mangosteens

so much for the secret gold bars dduuhhh

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/no-hazardous-cargo-just-tonnes-of-mangosteens-on-flight-mh370-says-airlines

3-4 tons, give or take a couple of thousand pounds. As if an airline doesn't do an accurate weight and balance calculation on every plane before it takes off.

"Hey Joe, let's just toss an extra ton of mangosteens in the rear cargo hold and watch this sucker go nose up and stall out on take off. I haven't had a good laugh all week."

Edit. No, an extra ton probably wouldn't adversely affect the plane "too much," but the idea that they don't know within a ton how much it weighed is not believable.

Edited March 19, 2014 by NeverSure

[sunshine51]

Post #2114 gave this link....

https://plus.google.com/106271056358366282907/posts/GoeVjHJaGBz

and I went to see what the man says and read the replies. For those

who feel the link is outta date you must read the entire post and it is

quite long indeed with the last reply at 1019PM today to Mr. Goodfellows

last statement posted at 737PM today...as I pass this info here.

What I found interesting, not only Goodfellow's logic, but also this

link to a post from a Maldives newspaper...

http://www.haveeru.com.mv/news/54062

I must admit that if one extrapolates Goodfellows hypothesis and

what the Maldives paper states then the SAR mission ain't gonna

find squat where they're looking at presently.

Plus I reckon this hypothesis is as good as any that has previously

been undertaken in the SAR scenario. Unless of course, somebody

in a certain government knows better. To which I will be asking this

question at tomorrows presser.

Only one thing about that second link and the Maldives sighting. The US base at Diego Garcia is highly active and would or should have picked it up on radar and flagged it as a possible threat.

The US military covers the whole area as it is vital to its shipping and air lanes. If an aircraft was in that area then alarm bells should have gone off at the base surely.

Why is there no search going on along the last recorded flight path of which the Maldives is on a direct path to ?

During the same time period that the initial turn was made by MH370 apparently all of the Spratly Island mobile phone communications operated by China Mobile were down. Im not sure if that would be the tower link but this could be a reason for no communications from passengers phones or texts.

Lithium batteries are one possible cargo that could have gone pop and started a fire a de pressurization or breach as it went through the skin would have compounded problems.

We will have to see as things pan out but whatever happened it has left a lot of questions.

The airspace above Diego Garcia is closed....always has been if below a certain altitude or,

perhaps the USG forces on DG had a hankering for mangosteens?

The Spratly dilemma is interesting however since the GOT, SCS is so shallow, only between

50-80 meters deep, even if MH370 had crashed or ditched the aircraft would certainly have

been located by now as well as the bodies...

Nobody has mentioned anything much about the Maldives angle so we must wait in the blind

on that issue....however...it holds info as much as the eyewitnesses on the beach in Kelantan

who swear they saw & heard an aircraft fly low overhead the night MH370 went missing. Then

again TWA 800 had numerous witnesses and it was later confirmed that what those witnesses

saw didn't help one iota in the investigation...too many conflicting views & stories...etc. The Kiwi

feller on the SCS oil rig...50/50 on that one too...but I don't believe he has any reason to lie

about what he saw either.

By now...or at least within the past 7 days lets say...are there US "KH" series satellites involved

in the search? We don't know & never will know that answer. However I see no reason why

one or two cannot be tasked and manouvered into specific places to assist. These KH series

satellites, the new ones, don't have 50, 20, 10 meter resolutions....they have centimeter

resolutions. They can "see" not only in the visible spectrum but also in the IR and thermal

spectrums. They can search wide, see something "interesting" then narrow band their search

and nail the target to less than a meter of said targets actual geo-position. This isn't fiction

folks, this is fact. An old military buddy of mine who retired from the USAF worked at the

NRO until retirement in 2008, came to LOS for a visit and we had a great chat for a few

days. Just prior to he & his family's departure he handed me a 128GB pendrive and mentioned

something about what's on it will load "kinda slow". The photograph on the pendrive took ages

to load and now resides on a removable SSD storage drive and still takes considerable time

but not as long to load onto a monitor. It's a KH** composite pic (vis-IR-NIR-reduced thermal)

image of Phuket on 27 December 2004 taken between 0000GMT to 0200GMT...from directly

overhead. It's a very scary photograph...at 50 centimeter resolution...from a geo-sync position.

Perhaps something like this is why the search is now so far South?

Again we're blind and we will just have to wait for the location of MH370 & I believe it will be

located although when is anybody's guess.

[Showbags]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

the cargo comprised 3-4 tons of mangosteens

so much for the secret gold bars dduuhhh

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/no-hazardous-cargo-just-tonnes-of-mangosteens-on-flight-mh370-says-airlines

3-4 tons, give or take a couple of thousand pounds. As if an airline doesn't do an accurate weight and balance calculation on every plane before it takes off.

"Hey Joe, let's just toss an extra ton of mangosteens in the rear cargo hold and watch this sucker go nose up and stall out on take off. I haven't had a good laugh all week."

Edit. No, an extra ton probably wouldn't adversely affect the plane "too much," but the idea that they don't know within a ton how much it weighed is not believable.

But you believed his post enough to respond...sheesh.

From memory....I recall using 77/78kg as pax weight on FP's and W&B's.....so how does your expert precision weight factoring counter all the fat bastards boarding during a weight watchers convention.

[webfact]

Maldives police probe reports of MH370 sighting

NEW DELHI - Police in the Maldives are probing reports that islanders in the tourism paradise saw a "low-flying jumbo jet" on the day the missing Malaysia Airlines plane vanished.

In a statement released late Tuesday, police said they were investigating a report on the Haveeru news website that local residents had spotted a large plane flying over the remote southern island of Kuda Huvadhoo on March 8.

"The police are looking into the reports in the media saying that a low-flying airplane was sighted above Kuda Huvadhoo," the statement said.

Several alleged sightings of the Boeing 777, which vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board, have proved to be false alarms and reports of debris at sea have also turned up nothing.

Haveeru said witnesses on Kuda Huvadhoo had seen a white aircraft with red stripes flying towards the southern tip of the Maldives.

"I’ve never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We’ve seen seaplanes, but I’m sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly," the website quoted one witness as saying.

AFP


-- The Nation 2014-03-19

[Basil B]

I have a theory, which I am reluctant to post even on this forum, which almost certainly is "below the radar" of any kidnappers, if it is a hijacking.

If it Malaysia, China, and or other governments know the whereabouts of the plane and were preparing for an SAS type rescue, they would be providing a lot of misinformation as not to alert the kidnappers to what they know.

So when you read "Indonesia refuse permission for search planes to over fly" could be a red herring, my be it is the plane has been landed on a remote Indonesian island, maybe Indonesia is actually cooperating and helping the Malaysian and Chinese buy time while a rescue plan is put in to operation.

[Minnehaha]

... if there was a hijack and the passengers / crew were aware why did they not try to use their mobile phones when they flew over Malaysian land space? Out in the ocean there is no service but over land there should be some.

I think it was a fire. Came up quickly and smoke overcame the pilot and co pilot and then the cabin. Time to turn the plane and head for land but on autopilot while they tried to kill the fire but smoke got everybody quickly. Then ran out of fuel and crashed in the water.

[Chicog]

... if there was a hijack and the passengers / crew were aware why did they not try to use their mobile phones when they flew over Malaysian land space? Out in the ocean there is no service but over land there should be some.

I think it was a fire. Came up quickly and smoke overcame the pilot and co pilot and then the cabin. Time to turn the plane and head for land but on autopilot while they tried to kill the fire but smoke got everybody quickly. Then ran out of fuel and crashed in the water.

And miraculously cut off ALL communication, ACARS and the Transponder?

I don't think so.

[khaosai]

This guy may have a resonable theory on the mystery:

»Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?« (Edit: as radar shadow from Andeman Sea to ???)

http://mh370shadow.com/post/79838944823/did-malaysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68

Keith Ledgerwoods theory posted in above link does make some sense, using another B777 as radar shadow en-route to Europe (see the map plotting in the Blog).

The southbound route to nowhere does not make sense, whilst a northbound route do make sense for hi-jacking or whatever, passing countries like Iran, or as Keith Ledgerwood says: »There are several locations along the flight path of SIA68 where it could have easily broken contact and flown and landed in Xingjian province, Kyrgyzstan, or Turkmenistan. Each of these final locations would match up almost perfectly with the 7.5 hours of total flight time and trailing SIA68. In addition, these locations are all possibilities that are on the ARC and fit with the data provided by Inmarsat from the SATCOMs last known ping at 01:11UTC.«

There were 2 Iranians onboard on false passports stolen in Phuket. Did they use a cover-up with the story of seeking asylum, one heading for Copenhagen intending to seeks asylum in Malmo, Sweden; the other heading for asylum somewhere else in Europe (cannot by hearth remember exactly where)?

Were the cockpit crew and the aircraft engineer part of it or did somebody else get into the cockpit during the first part of the flight?

In the beginning the news media talked about 5 passengers who did not board the flight and their luggage were removed, but we never heard anything more about this, which is little mysterious.

Do any of the passengers or cargo on MD370 have any interest for third party; like the mentioning of the group of IT-specialist and others, and when did they book or plan the flight?

Do any state, country or group in these potential landing places have any interest in hijacking a B777 and the load, passengers and/or cargo?

IMO there are many good reasons for the radar-shadow theory

(Edit: typo)

I agree, I think this is a brilliant theory. It would certainly explain how the plane was able to evade

radar. Wonder if anyone knows how physically close two planes would have to be to show up as one

radar blip.The Maldives sighting puts a bit of a hole into this theory, but that one seems a bit weak. A few islanders saying they saw a low flying plane 11 days ago, with one person saying it was so low

they could see the doors on it. So if shown a photo, I would certainly think they could also identify the livery of Malaysia Air.......

I also wonder if the pilot is able to turn off oxygen for the passengers and kill them. Whatever plan the captain has, dealing with a couple hundred really angry passengers would

have to make it a lot harder......I suspect the airline manufacturers are following this story closely,

with the concept of how to protect the plane against a rogue captain.

The five missing passengers story was later retracted by Malaysian Air, and their position now

is that everyone boarded.

Hi,

I agree, it's a brilliant theory and remarkable if it turns out to be true. I have no idea how close the aircraft would have to be to show up as one blip, but line astern might be ok. The only issue then would be the possible effects of wake turbulence from the preceding aircraft. When it decided to peel away and land, there would be a chance it might be spotted on primary radar, so that's the only part that throws up some questions in my mind.

Regarding the passenger oxygen, there is no switch that directly controls the oxygen for the passengers in the flight deck. There is however a switch that can be used to deploy the passenger oxygen masks. There are also switches that control the aircraft pressurisation, so that theory, again may be plausible.

Regarding the weights onboard the aircraft. All cargo and checked in bags use actual weights. Passengers use standard weights which includes a small allowance for hand luggage. Personally I think the standard weights need to be reassessed. My previous aircraft type had a display of how heavy the aircraft actually was, compared to how heavy the paper work said it was. The figure was generally always over by a few tons. A 3 ton weight increase on the B777, performance wise is negligible, with the speeds changing by approx 1 knot.

[Minnehaha]

... if there was a hijack and the passengers / crew were aware why did they not try to use their mobile phones when they flew over Malaysian land space? Out in the ocean there is no service but over land there should be some.

I think it was a fire. Came up quickly and smoke overcame the pilot and co pilot and then the cabin. Time to turn the plane and head for land but on autopilot while they tried to kill the fire but smoke got everybody quickly. Then ran out of fuel and crashed in the water.

And miraculously cut off ALL communication, ACARS and the Transponder?

I don't think so.

no miracles.

if the pilot had smoke and knew he had a fire he might switch off all electrical buses and then switch them on one by one to identify the faulty one. They did not make it to the ACARS and Transponder.

just a theory.

[GentlemanJim]

This guy may have a resonable theory on the mystery:

»Did Malaysian Airlines 370 disappear using SIA68/SQ68 (another 777)?« (Edit: as radar shadow from Andeman Sea to ???)

http://mh370shadow.com/post/79838944823/did-malaysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68

Keith Ledgerwood’s theory posted in above link does make some sense, using another B777 as radar shadow en-route to Europe (see the map plotting in the Blog).

The southbound route to nowhere does not make sense, whilst a northbound route do make sense for hi-jacking or whatever, passing countries like Iran, or as Keith Ledgerwood says: »There are several locations along the flight path of SIA68 where it could have easily broken contact and flown and landed in Xingjian province, Kyrgyzstan, or Turkmenistan. Each of these final locations would match up almost perfectly with the 7.5 hours of total flight time and trailing SIA68. In addition, these locations are all possibilities that are on the “ARC” and fit with the data provided by Inmarsat from the SATCOM’s last known ping at 01:11UTC.«

There were 2 Iranians onboard on false passports stolen in Phuket. Did they use a cover-up with the story of seeking asylum, one heading for Copenhagen intending to seeks asylum in Malmo, Sweden; the other heading for asylum somewhere else in Europe (cannot by hearth remember exactly where)?

Were the cockpit crew and the aircraft engineer part of it – or did somebody else get into the cockpit during the first part of the flight?

In the beginning the news media talked about 5 passengers who did not board the flight and their luggage were removed, but we never heard anything more about this, which is little mysterious.

Do any of the passengers – or cargo – on MD370 have any interest for third party; like the mentioning of the group of IT-specialist and others, and when did they book or plan the flight?

Do any state, country or group in these potential landing places have any interest in hijacking a B777 and the load, passengers and/or cargo?

IMO there are many good reasons for the “radar-shadow” theory…

(Edit: typo)

I agree, I think this is a brilliant theory. It would certainly explain how the plane was able to evade

radar. Wonder if anyone knows how physically close two planes would have to be to show up as one

radar blip.The Maldives sighting puts a bit of a hole into this theory, but that one seems a bit weak. A few islanders saying they saw a low flying plane 11 days ago, with one person saying it was so low

they could see the doors on it. So if shown a photo, I would certainly think they could also identify the livery of Malaysia Air.......

I also wonder if the pilot is able to turn off oxygen for the passengers and kill them. Whatever plan the captain has, dealing with a couple hundred really angry passengers would

have to make it a lot harder......I suspect the airline manufacturers are following this story closely,

with the concept of how to protect the plane against a rogue captain.

The five missing passengers story was later retracted by Malaysian Air, and their position now

is that everyone boarded.

Why are you asking people to answer questions for you when you believe you have all the answers? You do not believe what we tell you about code words, so why are you asking " if the pilot is able to turn off oxygen for the passengers and kill them.". If you get an answer are you likely to believe it? or will you tell the provider of the answer they don't know what they are talking about despite the fact they have been doing the job all their lives?

Khaosai

If they were flying slightly line astern then military radars would have given a resolution of around 300-600 ft at the kind of distances being thrown around. So formation inside that band would be the only safe way to avoid detection. Definitely doable by somebody with the right background and training.

Minehaha

You are probably closest to the real occurrence. The pilots first job would be to deal with an emergency prior to any communications and if that emergency deteriorated then the capacity of the crew would have been totally focused on that. I also still favour the catastrophic incident theory. If there was a fierce fire (lithium batteries?) the pilots would have indeed tried to isolate certain areas/electrics if they considered them to be burning. The Captain was Malaysian and new Malaysia like the back of his hand, was the first turn actually an instinctive turn to get to Lankawi and get the aircraft on the ground - the first thought with a burning aircraft full of pax. Lankawi has a very long runway and could have easily taken the aircraft as heavy as it was. I have had three major emergencies and the immediate turn towards a close suitable runway is almost immediate and instinctive - if you want to live!.

The climb to 45 K feet could be for two likely reasons. The Captain made an attempt to extinguish an out of control fire by going where oxygen is a rarity or, the crew were incapacitated and the autopilot disengaged during the electric disruption. The Mac trim tabs would give a nose-up force causing the aircraft to climb until its max ceiling, it would have continued in this attitude until it stalled, descending to a point where the aircraft trim system would have brought the aircraft back to a kind of stabalized flight in the lower "thicker" area of the atmosphere (i think reports are initially 16K ft then 5K ft). The aircraft carries on until out of fuel or it came apart due to the fire. The Captain whose name has already been sullied simply because his wife left him and he disagreed with an MP going to jail and passed his time at home on a self built simulator (check youtube there are some amazing home made sims last time I looked) probably put up an heroic fight with the aircraft until he was overcome with smoke and fumes. (I think there is only one smoke hood in the front of a 777 and that would not last too long).

The Tom Clancy theories are good but Ockham and his razor are normally always closest to the mark.

[Credo]

I think that shadowing another plane would be difficult. It would have to be very, very well planned. With communication cut off, how would they find the other plane to shadow it?

[Farma]

Skynews has a breaking news banner quoting a "source" saying investigator's working assumption is that the missing Malaysian plane flew to far southern part of the search area which includes the indian ocean.

They are also showing a NST newpaper report that they are waiting for information from a large radar dome in central Australia (Pine Gap?)

[GentlemanJim]

I think that shadowing another plane would be difficult. It would have to be very, very well planned. With communication cut off, how would they find the other plane to shadow it?

If it occurred as Tom Clancy would have it then the planning would have had to be meticulous

The formation bit can be done. Finding the aircraft would have needed some co-ordination but you know roughly where it is due to be and an ipad and a small gadget or two that can be fitted/attached would give you a piece of equipment able to find the exact aircraft you want to. From there its just a case of come in from behind. adjust altitude and fly like a legend. I still think the aircraft suffered a major emergency.

[Mojomor]

There is a report of eyewitness sightings over the Maldives at dawn. The time is 8.15 Malaysian time, and the colour description matches.

So it looks like the flight terminated somewhere south of there.

[harleyclarkey]

http://www.independent.ie/world-news/ten-days-later-thailand-admits-radar-may-have-detected-missing-jet-30104078.html

Fears are growing that the hunt for missing Flight MH370 is being hampered by failures by many of the countries involved to work together on the search.

Ten days after the aircraft disappeared, Thailand's military said that its radar detected a plane that may have been the Malaysia Airlines jet, minutes after its communications went down, but did not share the data earlier because officials “did not pay any attention to it” and were not specifically asked for it.

One of the great mysteries of the modern world, a plane with 279 souls on board is missing, it is on the news every second around the world, it goes missing on Thailand's doorstep.....and he doesn't see any significance in a radar sighting at the time the plane turned in the very area of MH370 flight path???

Incredible.

Edited March 19, 2014 by harleyclarkey

[Credo]

At any given time, there are thousands of planes in the skies. Unless you are told to look for something specific, or the military has tracked a suspicious aircraft from an unfriendly country, it seems quite likely that no one would pay much attention, especially if it was not in the countries air space.

[harleyclarkey]

At any given time, there are thousands of planes in the skies. Unless you are told to look for something specific, or the military has tracked a suspicious aircraft from an unfriendly country, it seems quite likely that no one would pay much attention, especially if it was not in the countries air space.

No Credo....very few flights in that specific area at that specific time. And add in a missing plane and they take a nap for 11 days??? Also...how many do a u-turn with no transponder turned on?/

And they find this normal??

What a joke the Thai boys are.

[GentlemanJim]

At any given time, there are thousands of planes in the skies. Unless you are told to look for something specific, or the military has tracked a suspicious aircraft from an unfriendly country, it seems quite likely that no one would pay much attention, especially if it was not in the countries air space.

To give folks an idea of the amount of traffic in the skies in a 24 hr period, this video was made of European traffic, all displayed in under two minutes. It is quite breathtaking, with an order that can only be described as beautiful, but gives an idea of the difficulty in finding dots and blips in a regions radar. SE Asia is also very busy in terms of traffic but no visualization has been made yet of traffic in this region. This will give you an idea though of how busy and distracted ATC staff could become.

http://www.wired.com/design/2014/03/plane-viz/

[EvilDrSomkid]

Maldives police probe reports of MH370 sighting

NEW DELHI - Police in the Maldives are probing reports that islanders in the tourism paradise saw a "low-flying jumbo jet" on the day the missing Malaysia Airlines plane vanished.

In a statement released late Tuesday, police said they were investigating a report on the Haveeru news website that local residents had spotted a large plane flying over the remote southern island of Kuda Huvadhoo on March 8.

"The police are looking into the reports in the media saying that a low-flying airplane was sighted above Kuda Huvadhoo," the statement said.

Several alleged sightings of the Boeing 777, which vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur with 239 people on board, have proved to be false alarms and reports of debris at sea have also turned up nothing.

Haveeru said witnesses on Kuda Huvadhoo had seen a white aircraft with red stripes flying towards the southern tip of the Maldives.

"I’ve never seen a jet flying so low over our island before. We’ve seen seaplanes, but I’m sure that this was not one of those. I could even make out the doors on the plane clearly," the website quoted one witness as saying.

AFP

-- The Nation 2014-03-19

Don't understand why they call Kuda Huvadhoo remote. Its right in the center of the Maldives. And not that far from Male Airport. Don't Malaysian fly to Male?

http://goo.gl/maps/Jeduv

[3NUMBAS]

says here they think it headed south for a long flight to nowhere

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/257561

quote

"The working assumption is that it went south, and furthermore that it went to the southern end of that corridor," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The view is based on the lack of any evidence from countries along the northern corridor that the plane crossed their airspace, and the failure to find any trace of wreckage in searches in the upper part of the southern corridor.

Edited March 19, 2014 by 3NUMBAS

[mcfester]

At any given time, there are thousands of planes in the skies. Unless you are told to look for something specific, or the military has tracked a suspicious aircraft from an unfriendly country, it seems quite likely that no one would pay much attention, especially if it was not in the countries air space.

To give folks an idea of the amount of traffic in the skies in a 24 hr period, this video was made of European traffic, all displayed in under two minutes. It is quite breathtaking, with an order that can only be described as beautiful, but gives an idea of the difficulty in finding dots and blips in a regions radar. SE Asia is also very busy in terms of traffic but no visualization has been made yet of traffic in this region. This will give you an idea though of how busy and distracted ATC staff could become.

http://www.wired.com/design/2014/03/plane-viz/

Hardly a fair comparision to SE Asia at 1am.

[Basil B]

At any given time, there are thousands of planes in the skies. Unless you are told to look for something specific, or the military has tracked a suspicious aircraft from an unfriendly country, it seems quite likely that no one would pay much attention, especially if it was not in the countries air space.

No Credo....very few flights in that specific area at that specific time. And add in a missing plane and they take a nap for 11 days??? Also...how many do a u-turn with no transponder turned on?/

And they find this normal??

What a joke the Thai boys are.

Have you actually seen radar used, when an airplane has it's transponder on the data is superimposed on top of the "radar blip" making it highly visible to the operator, unless there was very little traffic it is probable the operator never saw it especially as it was outside their control area, also as it is just a blip unless the operator was specifically tracking that flight they would not have noticed it turn.

What I would like to know is it common to have a plane on radar without it's transponder on, and if so why?

[GentlemanJim]

At any given time, there are thousands of planes in the skies. Unless you are told to look for something specific, or the military has tracked a suspicious aircraft from an unfriendly country, it seems quite likely that no one would pay much attention, especially if it was not in the countries air space.

To give folks an idea of the amount of traffic in the skies in a 24 hr period, this video was made of European traffic, all displayed in under two minutes. It is quite breathtaking, with an order that can only be described as beautiful, but gives an idea of the difficulty in finding dots and blips in a regions radar. SE Asia is also very busy in terms of traffic but no visualization has been made yet of traffic in this region. This will give you an idea though of how busy and distracted ATC staff could become.

http://www.wired.com/design/2014/03/plane-viz/

Hardly a fair comparision to SE Asia at 1am.

Hardly a fair comment giving I said the caveat was europe 24 hrs in 2 mins. What do you think the skies of SE Asia look like over a 24 hr period?

[coma]

Files deleted on the 3rd of March [a few days before the flight] from the pilot's private simulator. As I suspected from day one. He is as guilty as sin itself.

[coma]

There is a report of eyewitness sightings over the Maldives at dawn. The time is 8.15 Malaysian time, and the colour description matches.

So it looks like the flight terminated somewhere south of there.

This has been proven to be a false report. The times don't fit.