My two cents.

So far I see no conclusive evidence that the aircraft last seen on primary radar 200 nm NW of Penang was actually MAS370. In addition, this would raise a lot of questions, for example why the aircraft had turned off its transponder and was NORDO and why it turned West.

At post 1835 I posted a report from a guy in Marang who claims a strong unusual noise was heard at 1:20 MTY on Marang beach, exactly the same time the aircraft was last seen on flightradar24 at N 6.38 E 103.46. The distance from Marang is 89.315 nm, however this report would deserve more attention, in my opinion.

Guys please... If it was 'massive technical failure' they would've elected to ditch not try to attempt a return to KUL

The question about ACARS was asked in the PC, but the muppet who answered the question, completely ignored the fact he was asked about ACARS data and waffled on about radar returns. Incompetent or covering up?

The International Seismological Centre has stations in that area. I'm not sure if a 777 crashing would produce a reading but there would be nothing lost by the investigators asking them;

Seismological contact information

I believe a good radar system works like a layered brick wall, different sites overlapping and giving depth.

I'd say the lack of detailed information would be regarding miltary capabilities and also from a legal standpoint.

Early post showed guys operating in the area, I wonder if they have had time to collect their thoughts and can shead and light on anything they may have seen in the search areas.?

Deepest of sympathy to families and friends

Not knowing the geography of that part of Asia at all. Is there anyway they tried to get back with massive technical problems VFR and impacted land not necessarily mainland Malaysia? What are the chances of this been unseen by eyewitness due to jungle or lack of densely populated area?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this position seems to me to be a mere 25 NM or so south of Phuket in Thailand, and a line connecting this and the other known position crosses Thailand. Have there been any comments from them?

OK… so boats are typically separated by less than 20km.

An intact 777 descends rapidly from 10km. No lights or very fast-moving lights?
No moon. Steeply into the sea.

No one need see anything, not even hear a splash.

And do they all have radios?

There are two US Navy guided missile destroyers participating in the SAR, one assigned to the Strait and the Andaman Sea, the other in the Gulf of Thailand. It would be interesting to know where they were when MH370 went missing, and whether their phased array radar coverage can rule out any transit of MH370 within the operating range of their radars.

The more I think of it the more I can only see one scenario fitting all open questions: slow developping inflight fire. It would explain complete loss of comms, the need to turn back and the still inknown location of impact. As long a the aerodynamics are not affected by the fire an airplane could go very far before coming to its final rest.

It is a horrible thought, but not that unprobable.

How does the latest info about radar pilot and time sum up with distance/speed from last konen position ?

I concur, this seems to be a furphy, there were a couple of reports of fishermen in the Malacca straits seeing a low flying aircraft, then the next thing we have a lot of "unidentified" primary radar logs being leaked by "military sources" and on it goes.

What it really shows (which we already knew) is that Primary Radar is pretty much useless in identifying aircraft, especially after the fact, isn't designed to do so nor to find "missing" aircraft, and no one is watching it except for "threats". Commercial aircraft are not threats, and not bearing down on military installations or ships, so not of any military significance.

Seems there are some people trawling through a lot of logs trying to make sense of a lot of almost meaningless data with no real clue what any of it means, probably under lots of pressure to "find something", and drawing conclusions from media speculation rather than facts.

Nakata, if the massive technical failure was electrical (possibly caused by an explosion), the aircraft may have been able to fly in a degraded mode. However, navigation and handling would have been challenging.

pjm----rubbish.primary radar especially primary radar used by the Military would be extremely useful in tracking an Aircraft whose SSR was switched off. Otherwise the Military might as well remove them all as a waste of money in detecting illegal entry. Do you think the enemy fighter Jets and bombers inbound to their target will switch on their SSR!!!

What do you think we did before SSR was developed?? Yep used Primary Radar skin paint returns.

Rubbish yourself, unless there was a "hot" threat launched from North Korea or Russia (etc) and bearing down at great speed on a military target, the Military wouldn't notice or be interested.

ATC don't use primary radar these days. There's no way they could manage the amount of traffic with such a primitive system.

Perhaps look at Korean Air 007 - part of the reason it was shot down was because the Soviets believed the US were using the cover of regular air traffic to try run surveillance flights - when the flight deviated from course by accident they took this as being an incursion. A "threat" won't always be a nicely lit up formation of mach 2 paints heading directly for major military areas. That said, 1983 was a far more paranoid time but I would have expected an unresponsive aircraft flying on a non standard route should have raised some suspicions - possibly not a threat level, but at least a "what is going on here".

You don't think the military would be interested in a Un-identified target doing 450kts at 29,500' ( not a common Airline level ) flying smack across their country???

I tell you what, if that happened over the Ocean and this target approached an US navy Battle group they would get detected 200 nm out, tracked, intercepted, identified visually and then shot down if they didn't turn away from the Carrier. ALL USING PRIMARY SEARCH RADARS.

Just because the Malaysian Air Force was asleep at 2 am and didn't notice at the time does not mean that Primary Radar is useless and not needed.

And yes I'm aware civilian ATC don't use Primary Radar these days thanks all the same.

I really start thinking that Malaysian do not have incompetence in SAR. :ugh:
It is time to be honest. They should give explanation and be honest with everybody, we would save time.
China is impatient now and I really understand them.
This case starting becoming boring and give nerves.

4 standby passengers replaced 5 no-shows?
 

I thought this seemed a bit odd.

At the news conference, they said 5 no-shows pax were replaced with 4 pax on standby.

The MH T7s can carry 282 pax (35 in business and 247 in economy); there were 227 pax listed on this flight. Why the need for a standby list?

LOS comms
 

Be aware that there are several HF frequencies in use in any particular area depending on time of day. Hailing an aircraft on HF via selcal is iffy at best when you have no idea which frequencies the HF radios were last tuned to.

Also, LOS is from altitude to sea level in most calculations. If the ground antenna is on a 400' hill then you can add 28 miles to the numbers. Similarly, between planes at high altitude you can reach out 450 miles or so.