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I captured a screen shot of all of the airplane traffic at 18:22 UTC on FlightRadar24, and used the Preliminary Report Map Showing MH370’s Flight Path to add the flight path and approximate locations for MH370 at18:01:49 UTC and 18:22 UTC.
I also added certain waypoints and airplane call signs, as well as MH370's last approximate transponder location at 17:22 UTC.
At 18:22 UTC, UAE343 was flying at 34,000 feet in close proximity to where they identified MH370 as being at that same time.
It would appear to me that the aircraft which flew ahead of and underneath UAE343 was either a private jet or else an international military flight. Many air forces but primarily the US Air Force have significant transport aircraft logistics movements. Dare I use the word Diego Garcia, but there are legitimate aircraft movements there?
ReplyDeleteIt appears to me the aircraft tracked by Butterworth actually departed and climbed out of Penang International airport just before 2am MYT. There are no scheduled flights at that time. It could be that this was a US Military flight associated with exercises being held with Thailand at the time.
If you take the time 17:24 UTC when the last ADS/transponder return arrived from MH370 over BITOD and calculate the time required to fly back west at 5,000ft then MH370 had insufficient time to be the same aircraft seen by Butterworth radar.
That is because air density would have limited MH370 at 5,000ft to a maximum True Air Speed (TAS) to 350kt. The distance from BITOD to Southern Penang Island via Kota Bharu is 260nm, then factor in a turn NW to VAMPI. We know the aircraft tracked from Penang was directly over Palau Perak at 2:03am (18:03 UTC). The extra distance from southern Penang is another 78nm or a total track distance from BITOD of 338nm.
The time constraint for MH370 to fly from BITOD to Palau Perak was 39 minutes, but at 350kt TAS, MH370 would have required 57 minutes. It also required MH370 to make a snap roll turn at 35,000ft to reverse course. Aircraft at such high altitudes are not able to perform high-G maneuvers like that. A 20 degree bank is about the maximum possible at such altitude and that is in itself a dangerous turn, due to the risk of stall.
Put simply MH370 could not have flown back from BITOD at low altitude, not even at 12,000 feet because of time constraint.
At higher altitude it would have lit up every radar for hundreds of miles.MH370 just never flew west.
If not already observed, these links may be of interest/useful:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-06/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-malaysia-deploy-more-equipment/5575700
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2014/07/09/atsb-cautious-optimism-on-mh370-is-a-media-stunt/