On Tue, 31 Mar 2015 05:51:52 -0700, Bruce Hoult wrote:

As for MH370 .. as I recall it turned back, descended, flew low over the
mainland, and then climbed back to a normal cruise altitude, while
starting to follow a precise route via 3 or 4 standard navigation points
(that had NOTHING to do with their route), until it was out of radar
range, when it (supposedly) turned to the southern Indian Ocean and
oblivion.

Not from what I saw and read. It turned left over the South China Sea at
after hand-off from Malaysian ATC and without contacting Vietnamese ATC
and turned off its transponder. Then it flew a course that crossed the
Malaysian peninsular more or less over the Malay-Thai border without, it
seems, maintained its cruising altitude and course until it went out of
military radar range. All the accounts I've seen agree about that much.

That course, if held until it ran out of fuel, would have put it quite a
lot further west than the main search area, which seems to have been
chosen from satellite data without taking a lot of notice of the
military radar plot.

That's a heck of a lot of carefully coordinated seemingly purposeful
things for a hypoxic pilot to do accidentally. Boggles the mind, it
does.

It would if thats what happened. However, its been pointed out that
military radars, especially at or near their max range, are much better
and recording range and direction than they are at height. No transponder
height available, remember, and the military radar trace is the only
trace available at that stage of the flight.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
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