INTERESTING!!! MALAYSIAN FLIGHT 370 3/14/2014 By Captain, USNR, retired Captain, Trans World Airlines, Retired As a former carrier-based fighter/attack pilot with over 100 missions in Viet Nam and a Captain flying for TWA for 33 years with a hi-jack experience here’s my perspective on the developments, to date, regarding Malaysian Flight 370 and why and possibly where I think it is on the ground : If I wanted to abscond with a $37 million airplane that could be used as a future bomb/missile and 239 potential hostages for ransom then I would do just what the data points for flt 370 suggest to this point……..plus what further I would do as a hi-jacker that may give suggestions for further search for the plane: 1.) Once over the Gulf of Thailand I would make myself ‘invisible’ by turning off the transponder and pulling the ACARS circuit breaker just as Flight 370 did. I would now become a ‘secondary’ radar target to any radar that I might become exposed to. However, I would only become ‘skin paint’ (a weak radar return) with no ID, speed, heading or altitude information. The fact that this indeed happened casts a pall of intent and deception and malfeasance over the entire event. 2.) I would then make a turn like flt 370 did to evade any perception or anticipation of what my future track may be. 3.) With a dark, moonless clear night, as experienced by this flight, I could drop my altitude and using the lights of the Malaysian peninsula drop low into the Strait of Malacca and around Palau Perak lower my altitude below any radar coverage by flying ‘nap of the earth.’ This small island seems to be the place where the Malaysian military radar lost the secondary radar return that is thought to be flight 370. ‘Nap of the earth’ flying is what we did off Navy carriers in Viet Nam to fly below the radar coverage of the VN radar and SAM missiles in order to make our ingress to inland targets. We would ingress well up or down the coast from our target so as not to draw a straight line (and attention) from ingress point to the target. 4.) Right now the search for 370 appears to be out into the Indian Ocean on a straight line from the radar track that stopped at Pelau Perak. If it was me I would take up a heading, below radar coverage, up the Malacca Strait toward the thousands of miles of coastline of Burma, Bangladesh, and India as well as the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago. OR take up a heading to thread the Strait by Singapore and continue to the thousands of islands in the Philippine archipelago, the coasts and islands of Indonesia, Brunei, Sumatra and the hundreds of islands east of Indonesia. Anyone smart enough to disable the transponder and ACARS would be smart enough to know there’s no point in flying out into the vacant Indian Ocean. 5.) ‘Nap of the earth’ flying does not require a great amount of talent: a map. a compass, a watch, airspeed indicator, and a radar altimeter that allows you to fly as low as 100 feet above the water (or less) and a basic knowledge of ‘dead reckoning.’ This could all be done at night with the basic instruments in the cockpit. 6.) The darkness that flight 370 was experiencing would be an ally. The dawn that would occur an hour or so before fuel exhaustion would benefit a controlled landing at any one of the above-mentioned countries, islands or archipelagos. 7.) The fact that no ELT (emergency locater transmitter) beacons have been heard by any satellites (if that’s still true) suggests some kind of controlled landing. 8.) In the 2,500 mile search radius I would first ‘filter’ out the most remote, uninhabited shorelines. Then overlay them with known terrorist groups territory. Another overlay of beaches, clearings or runways of 6,500 feet or greater. 9.) Take the data collected in and apply statistical probabilities to suggest a priority for search areas. 10.) There may be unnoticed ingress routes to more inland landing sites - those should be considered. 11.) A plane as big as a 777 flying inland and/or in the light of dawn would be pretty noticeable, however. this scenario would involve fewer resources than the highly coordinated attack of 911.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:44:35 +0000
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