Marine Radar - Malacca Straits Piracy
The Malacca Strait is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, at the beginning of this century it had a huge problem with piracy which resulted in LLoyds adding a 1% risk surcharge to shipping travelling through it.
Huge measures were taken by Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia to rectify the problem. Radar coverage was greatly increased and patrols were stepped up in the area.
Piracy has reduced markedly since those measures were introduced, but is still a problem, I believe an oil tanker was hijacked just last year.
Could the increased search activity in the Malacca Strait be the result of unidentified radar returns which have come to light after reviewing marine radar footage at a later date ???
I'm not overly familiar with the maritime radar systems which are employed in that region, but I would assume they would have the capability of detecting low flying aircraft. I know in the UK the marine radar coverage of the English Channel is used for just that purpose.
Having conducted business in Asia in the past I am well aware of the importance of " Saving Face " You only have to look at Fukushima to understand just what sort of lengths people will go to too save face.
Is it feasible that the Malaysian Airforce are embarrassed that MH370 managed to overfly the country without being detected, could that be the reason for not disclosing that primary radar returns were detected by the Navy in the Malaccan Strait ???
I would find it very hard to believe that such a localised search would be taking place in the Strait without some sort of evidence that the plane may have been in the area, but I'm baffled as to why they wouldn't disclose such information.