I promised myself I shall remain silent until some new facts become known, but the official acknowledgement by the Malaysian Air Force chief that MH370 was tracked for over an hour after loss of transponder signal calls for some re assessment of what we know till now:
(NOTE: below deductions are valid IF the acknowledgement is substantially true)
- The loss of primary radar contact at 2:40 EXACTLY matches what was initially reported by MAS in their very first statement (still on their website). This was subsequently modified to 1:21 when transponder signal was lost (as reported by FR24), and a seemingly plausible explanation was given that the 2:40 is to be understood as when Subang centre notified MAS on the loss of comms.
- In a press conference on the 9th March, the Air Force chief already hinted that the aircraft 'may have' turned around. This was downplayed in the next couple of days, as SAR efforts concentrated around the last known transponder position.
- Clearly in the mean time significant SAR efforts have commenced in the Straits of Malacca, however in the past 2 days they were not commented on, or were dismissed with 'we are exploring all possibilities'. Only after if became clear (and extensively discussed on forums like here) to anyone with some knowledge that the search is now concentrated to the west of the Malay peninsula was the admission made.
From the initial slips of tongues (understandable in the evolving crisis situation) it would appear that already at the start of the events this was known, and possibly much more. In light of above, any official statement on (non)existing ACARS messages need to be treated with a good degree of caution.
All this is combined with the well known dread of 'losing face' in the region, which may result is some quite irrational decisions even quite high up in the hierarchy.
Of course several questions remain:
- Can we believe this information, after it is contradicting previous earlier statements (but add up with yet earlier ones) ?
- Do they have any more information on what could have happened other than the position of the aircraft ?
- Was the wild-goose chase in the Gulf of Thailand a diversion, or they genuinely had no clue which information to believe ?