This article makes an interesting point.
Aviation experts have baulked at the possibility of the missing jet flying on for hours undetected in the region, which is a hotbed of bitter territorial disputes and therefore subject to round-the clock surveillance by the competing parties.
Flying from the point where radar contact was lost in South China Sea to the Indian Ocean would have taken the plane through airspace monitored by Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Indonesian and Indian military radar.
"How did it get past all of that?" said Gerry Soejatman, an independent aviation analyst based in Jakarta.
Neil Hansford, chairman of leading Australian airline consultancy Strategic Aviation Solutions, said: "An aircraft, without any transponders on, going over the top of anybody's airspace would have become a military incident and somebody would have done something."
There appears to be a high probability of a 4+ hours flight in a "9-11" transponders off situation. In the US/Euro they have scrambled the interceptors for far less than this incident. How do we reconcile a hijack style flight with zero response from the military?
1. it was detected, ignored, no action taken and the military kept quiet.
2. it was detected, action was taken and military kept quiet.
3. it was not detected. The military genuinely had no awareness, military telling the truth. Therefore the region has no effective air defense monitoring.
Whichever way this turns out the air defense has got some explaining to do.