Malaysian Airlines MH370 contact lost

[selfin]

Originally Posted by Vinnie Boombatz

@Physicus (#3579):
You can zoom in here:
ArcGIS Viewer for Flex

Some FIR boundaries look similar, some don't. The ICAO boundary between Thailand and Malaysia, for example, zigs and zags a lot.

ICAO's GIS does not agree with Burma's declared Yangon FIR boundaries (Burma's ENR 2.1 here).
Skyvector also fails to correctly chart some of these FIR boundaries.

Originally Posted by onetrack

2. An oil rig worker, on a highly-elevated platform WITNESSED a fireball in the sky, in the correct direction, at height, right about the time of the aircrafts disappearance.

It's been advised, no space satellite of any superpower, picked up this fireball. Despite this seemingly impossible scenario, it can't be dismissed that all the sky surveillance missed this event. (#3595 Permlink)

The photographed print of the email (link) sent by the rig worker Mike McKay does not contain an observation time. In his opening paragraph he states, "I believe I saw the Malaysian Airlines plane coming down. The timing is right." It is unfortunate that he did not give an accurate observation time.

In the email he furnishes estimates for distance and bearing ranges. His two references to the initial altitude are "... burning at high altitude ..." and "... at a lower altitude than the normal flight paths."

Considering McKay's postulate with some additional assumptions:

1. target at a distance of 50 km to 70 km from rig,
2. target on a true bearing of 255 to 285 degrees,
3. target at an altitude 10,000 to 25,000 ft AMSL,
4. target instantaneously adopts a random course after observation and glides without turning,
5. glide ratio is between 6:1 and 12:1,
6. no wind,
7. spherical earth

and assuming a triangular distribution for (1) and (2), a uniform distribution for (3) and (5) and a discrete uniform distribution for the new course in (4), then the 99% confidence ellipse for a 10,000 iteration Monte Carlo simulation can be plotted (link to map; link to coordinates).

Although this location falls to the east of the area initially searched by Vietnam, debris drifting SW at 2 to 3 knots would by now have travelled about 400 to 500 NM to shore. Furthermore, the McKay scenario appears to be contradicted by the significant additional evidence alluded to by the US and Malaysia indicating a westward crossing of the peninsula followed by prolonged flight (cf. 'pings'). It is not convincing that a burning aircraft would endure prolonged flight of 4 to 5 hours. I think we can therefore set the McKay observation aside vis-à-vis MH370.