While the speculation about the new (unconfirmed?) information is ongoing, i like to coment on MC. Kay's oil rig observation.
Even professionals will have a hard time to judge distance further away than 2 miles at night, especially when there is no way to compare the observed object against a known object. Mc Kay testifies, that the object was either moving toward his position or away from it, but at the end he observed something not showing lateral movement. He testifies that the object was burning, but can you see flames at a distance greater than 2 miles or do you see some kind of light source? Due to the continuos noise on an oil rig he probably couldn't hear any noise asociated with his observation. And he talks about 50 to 70 km distance.
We can assume that he saw something what got his attention, and his testimony is biased by the knowledge, that MH370 was missing.
Was he observing the afterburner of a fighter aircraft? His description would fit, the plume can be observed during night for some distance, and a tight turn does not produce much lateral movement some distance away. Deselect burner, and the fire is gone. The noise would be blanked by the noise of the oil rig.
There is testimony of loud frightening noise observed landbased and reported (cant find the reference in all the posts). But the observers could not see an aircraft despite looking for it. Modern engines like on the T7 are very quiet, to be frightening the jet has to pass in very close vicinity and then should be observable.
My take on both observations: There had been fighters in the air searching for MH370. Maybe from Malaysia, maybe from Vietnam, maybe from both.
Last edited by RetiredF4; 13th Mar 2014 at 09:06.