Speculators on the a/c landing and/or refuelling somewhere need to be aware that US and other satellites can read the writing on a B777's wing and they will have been checking at remote strips all week. The unknown is how long it takes to bring the sats to bear and whether there were sufficient gaps in that process. And, yes, they can identify a B777 using I/R at night.

If I was one of the relatives of those onboard, I'd want to know straight away where the aircraft was, likewise the 12 or 14 countries that wasted millions of dollars because Malaysia wouldn't communicate what was happening is criminal.

Everyone knows time is critical, if authorities/search parties had been looking in the correct place from day 1 these terrorists may well be in custody, and the passengers safely back at home long ago!

Logic
 

If this a/c has been stolen, then certain things must be factored in.

First, whoever flew it away must have been working in concert with a ground team at the place they were heading for.

Therefore, they must have had some way of contacting that ground team to let them know they were a 'go' and that they were en route with the a/c.

How? SATCOMs, logically.

Afghanistan or Pakistan , surely too much military hardware for it to approach there.

There will be many layers to the way the authorities have played this. They may have leaked some details re satire tracking because they know this aircraft has crashed and it poses no risk. Or because they fear it has landed and wish to deter any further flights of this aircraft. Or simply to discourage future such events.

But there will have been a reason why it was leaked.

red herring
 

I'd be very cautious of giving too much credibility to the "stan" theoretical route. I guess that the Malaysians have chucked that in to counter Chinese criticism of the search so far. Any route from Gulf of Thailand to the stans would take the a/c through Chinese airspace or at least radar cover.

Also - a few home truths about the stans from someone who has travelled and worked in all of them over the years.

Pretty much all are ruled by anti-Islamist (though obviously Muslim) dictatorships or autarchies, who are mostly desperate to bring their countries into the international community at some level.
Geo-strategically they are beholden to and dependent on Russia and China.
Defensively they all use Soviet-era kit, and have large defence forces and good radar cover. It is unlikely they would allow penetration of airspace by an unidentified aircraft.

The only significant US-related target in the Stans is Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan, which is scheduled to close in July 2014.

I assess it as extremely unlikely that a 777 could be brought into the Stans without being identified and probably intercepted; and impossible (not a word I use lightly) that any state actor in the region would encourage or tolerate such an act.

Also, before we get too excited about Uighur seperatists in Xinjiang, the Chinese have the place under almost complete control. If they allowed (or failed to notice) a hijacked airliner to land within Chinese sovereign territory, the repercussions internally would be inconceivable.

The only possibility with the so-called "Northern route" that I can see is that the aircraft was intercepted and destroyed or forced down in NW China by Chinese air defence. There are huge areas (look at the Takla Makan desert on GE) where this could be effected without attracting too much notice.

Quote: Earlier in the week the Uighurs claimed responsibility, but it was dismissed as very unlikely. Now one has to wonder...

There was one Uighur among the pax.

What if Indian radars detected the same, scrambled the jet and took it out. They have capability and hardware to do that and their airforce is quite edgy at this moment.

Obviously, they will maintain a stony silence given Chinese nationals on plane.

Whatever, the key question is MOTIVE? Who and why will someone do this act.

The satcom was active and linking to INMARSAT until 8:11am. ACARS uses the satcom to send messages (automated or manual) to the company, Rolls Royce, or Boeing- depending.

Both the ATC transponder and the ACARS *link* to the satcom were manually interrupted at different times. The ACARS would have attempted to send a message (perhaps an automated position report) to the company or Boeing, but someone disabled its ability to do so.

The only way to do that would be to pull the ACARS c/b or disable the SAT link via a sub-menu through an FMS CDU.

So would I PJM. That's why relatives of those involved don't get to make such decisions.

At times the needs of many take priority over the needs of a few.

Don't think any nation will complain about SAR. It would have been valuable training. And no one is immune from this sort if threat = everyone will "cooperate".

Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan Airports
 

Given the possibility of a flight to the North towards Khazakstan, I note there are 86 functional airports in Kyrgyzstan and considerably more abandoned ones.

Kyrgyzstan borders Xinjiang in China. An alternative would be in Tajikistan which also borders Xinjiang.

Flights to either State can be made without crossing Chinese airspace, especially if the inwards vector is from around the Andaman Islands.

Outside of China, significant diasporic communities of Uyghurs exist in the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

Also, the 2 suggested flight paths are probably due to multi-lateration issues with the sat data. This is rougly equivalent to bearing ambiguity with sonar or the issues with correctly locating earthquake locations with data from multiple sensors.

I'm sure ALL military satellites will be or have already checked EVERY Airport in that area for a 777.

Not necessarily.. The messages may not be transmitting location data; they may be triangulating between two satellites, which would give a distance one way or the other from a given datum.

That's not the case. It seems that the aircraft did not send position reports as previously thought. INMARSAT and whomever (US gov't probably) were able to distinguish which satellite(s) were handshaking with the aircraft, but only to a degree that established an "arc". That arc goes North, toward the 'stans, or South, deeper into the Indian Ocean.

INMARSAT and the United States, et al would have intercepted that immediately, no doubt.

they are, and its so telling that "leaks" have told us what is actually happening days before Malaysia deemed anyone else needed to know.

You have a source saying the Inmarsat handshakes actually contain coordinates? Or are you just inferring that? There are more ways than transmitting actual coordinates to get position data from transmissions..

Inmarsat only relay the signal, it's be highly unlikely they have equipment to decode anything coming off their transponders, let alone aircraft communications.

If you go out from the idea this was a hijack and they tried to avoid being detected by radar, this must have been a pro with a lot of experience flying in the region. An amateur will not know how to fly waypoints to be undetected by radar. As a flight sim hobbyist I would know how to manipulate the autopilot and FMS to fly somewhere else, but I wouldn't know when exactly there will be a gap in radar coverage (certainly not sitting in the back), or where to fly to avoid radar detection. So you have two options:

1) one of the pilots did it
2) one of the PAX was a pilot and took over the plane

In both cases I think it must be more of a suicide mission than something else.