Quoting TheRocketeer (Reply 285): Ha! You guys will get a kick out of this: "The plane's transponder and other tracking systems were either shut off or not functioning around the time that communications with air traffic control ended. That would have prevented so-called secondary radar used by civilian authorities from identifying it, but not primary radar used by the military." |
This is exactly what I was thinking, the transponder identifies the aircraft and location. Where are the primary radar hits from the civilian ATC. Was their primary radar unserviceable at the time?? Poor equipment?? With PANAM 103, the primary radar picked up multiple hits as the 747 broke up at high altitude. I'm not seeing any information like this with MH370.
My gut feeling on this disaster is more like Swissair 111 (fire in the cockpit) or Qantas QF32 (exploding engine). This is the only thing that makes sense to me now. This would explain the turn back and possibly the various system failures and maybe confusion by the crew and lack of communication.