45 to 5 in a minute??
"The claimed altitude of 45Kft seems highly implausible - balancing a pin on a knife-edge sort of thing. As for the claimed altitude loss of 40Kft in one minute, well, it doesn't seem likely there would be much left after trying that one. Am I wrong?"
No, for a start why take the aircraft outside its safe operating altitude and to achieve such a rapid decent in one minute would probably cause immeasurable structural damage.
So if the intention was to "confuse" anyone by then flying somewhere else (after taking major steps to disable comms) why take that risk.
Brings this NYT info into serious question.