Retired F4, your explanation aligns with my previous attempt some pages back, but with more detail. Well said, sir, about general AD procedures.
Martin M:
But even if these guys where close and having an eye on anything closing in onto the helicopter carrier they are protecting, they (DDG-100) would not be interested in an object flying at 29'000 feet.
You are mistaken, Martin. The CO of that DDG is the local anti air warfare commander. He's got the better Aegis system than we had on our cruiser (20+ years ago) but the role is the same. When you are the local Air Defense commander, every single air contact is tracked and of interest until you are certain that it is on a opening course and speed relative to the battle group you are protecting. IF this contact was being tracked (not sure if the ship was in a position to do so the evening it went missing) then its track would have been identified and tracked by the guys on the scopes in Tracker Alley in Combat Information Center. I've stood enough watches in CIC in an AAW command ship to know how this works. (Yes, it's been a few years!)
Originally Posted by anotherposter
Why noone has asked the Indonesian guys yet to deliver any a radar data. It could be interesting to know if an unidentified object was flying over the area of Banda Aceh in direction of the indian ocean. Would this be the cased, you coud stop searching ...
... or look in a different place.
While I am not sure why you assume no one has asked the Indonesian guys, you raise a good point. Likely some info has been passed between Indonesian and Malaysian militaries. Perhaps no such track was recorded on Indonesian radar, or whatever they saw didn't fit into the other pieces in the puzzle.