So Now It's Official

[mralstoner]

Firstly, flying along borders in that part of the world (and most of the rest of the world) is probably the worst way to avoid being seen on radar - in complete contrast to the author's point. The only real way to avoid radar is to fly under it's coverage; in which case an aircraft like a 777 burns almost 5x the fuel as it does at cruise altitude - meaning it would have run out far sooner that his projected landing strip in Khazakstan.

Yeah, I had the same response to reading Jeff Wise's northern theory. I wondered why he didn't speak about a direct northern route straight into China, over Burma. That would seem more likely than far off Khazakstan, with its radar and fuel problems.

This picture suggests the China route (blue) is possible, but I don't know why few people consider it:



Here is my favourite theory:

http://bradleywest.net/vanishing-mh370-p...racy-rule/

RetiredF4 June 22, 2015  

The China angle was my (military biased) thinking from beginning. Only two countries had first hand information what was loaded onto the aircraft in terms of passengers and load, Malaysia as the country of departure and China as the country of destination. For an operation planned in advance and being executed on short notice such information is a vital one.

China was bewildering in the initial search actions, culminating with the stunt on hearing the pingers with a handheld hydrophone overboard a rubber dinghy. They should have known better, but rhey went on air with it. I cannot remember anything usefull coming from them until today. You already mentioned the passenger angle, while lot of information is available about the non China nationals, we draw a blank when it comes to passengers from China. Any country loosing over 100 citizens in a mystery disappearance would pressure the investigating bodies and use whatever lever would be available to find the reason for the disappearance, but not so China. They seemed quite happy to help in mapping the SIO though.

A routing like discussed along the borders of India is a routing against any tactical consideration. The military radar coverage along state borders is higher than within the country itself, and the readiness state of surveilance units is higher along the border as well. India would have to be in on a plot with routing along its borders.

I see a different low threat routing to the north through the center of Myanmar at low to medium altitude and at slower speeds. A low and slow flying aircraft even when detected raises less attention than a high and fast flying one. Satellites stationed to observe possible ICBM threats might not be programmed to monitor low and slow traffic within a country. It might even be not necessary to involve the military of Myanmar into the knowledge of such overflight, firsthand information concerning the radar coverage and operating hours along the intended routing would be sufficient and could be provided by chinese intelligence in advance. The routing would have variables in altitude, speed and track to follow the low risk routing. The routing could fullfill the BTO data, but I’m unable ro confirm this.

Such a low and slow routing would bend the routing to the east if following the BTO arcs. That makes Qamdo bamda a possible landing place.

Another problem with the Khazakstan/Russian hijack is that there is no way Putin would upset the Chinese by stealing a plane load of their citizens. No way in hell Putin would do that. Only possibility for Khazakstan is a joint Russia-China operation. (But personally I lean towards the China-alone hijack theory above).