Interesting Richard. Do you have web links that take up the matter of terrain masking, passive SONAR, or likely remote airstrips within range of the flight? And what's your theory on the disappearance of this aircraft, and the souls aboard?
Hi Phydeaux,
Here are some links:
Missing Malaysia Plane Flew at 5,000 ft and Used 'Terrain Masking' to Avoid Radar Detection - By Dean Nelson, and Jonathan Pearlman, Kuala Lumpur/ World/ The Telegraph.co.uk
"For almost eight hours after plane was apparently hijacked it flew as low as 5,000ft to avoid commercial radars..."
Where Is That Plane?!?!? - from BabyCenter Community
Scroll down and read the post by SaltedButter - Haven't heard any other mention of the additional fuel. But can't be discounted.
U.S.Spends $2.5M on Plane Search; May Give Sonar Gear to Malaysia - From Thompson/Reuters/Friday, March 21, 2014
...The U.S. Navy has a variety of active and passive sonar systems, some of which search the ocean for objects by emitting sound "pings" and monitoring the echoes that bounce back and others that listen for sound like an undersea microphone.
One system, called a "Towed Pinger Locator", is towed behind ships and is used to listen for downed Navy and commercial aircraft at depths of up to 20,000 feet (6000 meters), according to the U.S. Navy's website.
The U.S. military loaned this technology to France during its two-year effort to locate the black box from an Air France jetliner that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in June 2009..."
Malaysia Airlines Fight 370: Runways in Range - from wnyc.org
Gan Airport (Maldives) is in that grouping. Wonder if authorities seriously checked out the sighting of the low flying aircraft. The military base at Diego Garcia is only about 580 miles from the Maldives - we certainly could quickly have some assets there to conduct a search.
And in the opposite direction, perhaps the latest Chinese satellite images will bear fruit.
Best regards,
Richard