Originally Posted by TRW Plus
So now we are asked to believe that this plane flew for 5-6 hours at about 250 knots? Is that even possible? What could that tell us about the events before the turn southward?
You might want to read silvertate's post #9728 which went up a couple of hours before your post; he explains IAS - TAS and how altitude affects ground speed.
Another factor is how far north MH370 flew in order to not have raised any undue attention from the Indonesians. The last reported radar sighting of MH370 was in the vicinity of waypoint NILAM (Lat: 6.756389 Lon: 95.976389) An Indonesian spokesperson has stated that MH370 did not pass over Indonesian territory so we know the flight did not make its turn south at that point but how far north beyond NILAM it may have traveled is open to question. Probably the shortest conceivable route would have it going to NOPEK (6° 36' 14N 94° 25' 0E) and then possibly to NISOK ( 3° 2' 54N 92° 0' 0E) and from there joining airway M641 south.
However if the flight had followed that route, its path northbound from the Malacca Strait and the turn south would have been visible to Indonesian radar and that might have caused the Indonesians to add two and two and suspect they were seeing the missing Malaysian airliner. So it is possible that it continued on northward from NILAM until it was sure to be beyond Indonesian radar.
And of course the flight altitude would affect the range of visibility to Indonesian radar; and that information is unknown.