Originally Posted by
Chocks Away
Let's keep to the know facts - the aircraft was deftly manoeuvred along the borders of Malay; Thai and Indo airspace right to a point above Bandah Aceh, both in altitude and headings.
Well let's start by replacing that media hype you're spruiking with the real known facts. The airplane most assuredly did not manoeuvre, deftly or otherwise, along the Malaysian-Thai FIR boundary. After turning back off its planned flight path near IGARI MH370 flew on a track that took it over, not along, a stretch of about 120 kilometers of the Bangkok (Thailand)‐ Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) airspace boundary that traces the Golok River. Subsequently, MH370 remained firmly in the Kuala Lumpur FIR (Malaysian airspace) at all times until it was lost from radar.
The turnback from near IGARI is pretty much what would be expected in the case of an evolving inflight emergency with the flight crew commanding an initial diversion to Kota Bharu (WMKC) by selecting it off the FMC Alternate Page (WMKC would have been the No 1 “default” option) and commanding Divert Now, Execute followed a few minutes later by the choice of destination being amended to Penang (WMKP).
There is not a scintilla of evidence to support the notion that MH370 flew to a point above (over?) Banda Aceh; it disappeared off radar heading west-north-west about 80 nautical miles north-north-east of Banda Aceh and its final turn south would have brought it no closer than about 50 nautical miles to the west of Banda Aceh.