One thing I thought about with the theory of an explosion was my memory of Columbia’s radar signature. It was a huge line of returns on the screen.

I’d think an explosion at high altitude would be more than noticeable on radar, and be tracked from long distances.

http://www.munchkinwrangler.com/2014/03/14/theres-no-such-thing-as-localized-incompetence-in-politics/

Read the quote at the top and understand that is true across the networks.

I also am getting a kick out of the “OMG, the transponder was turned off!!!” you can still track the booger, just not going to have those fancy lines behind the video. You have seen what IFF looks like in heavy traffic areas, it’s a gaggle of crap. Whenever I was controlling 1V1, 2V2, etc, i would have IFF on when they checked in, but turned that crap off as soon as they started playing. If I needed info, all I had to do was flip a switch on, then off.

First off, I don’t know anything about what I’m talking about. If engine performance is being transmitted to satellites, is the time hack, and the specific satellite known? If received by more than one satellite, is triangulation possible? If you have transmissions hourly, can you establish a rough track?

Going further into things I don’t know, can’t military satellites track heat traces? Read somewhere the Soviets could track the heat traces of our submarines. Of course, that could have been disinformation. Seperating heat traces along airways might be very difficult, but one going out into the Indian Ocean where aircraft seldom fly might stand out.

Insty links to article suggesting Central Asia as possible landing spot – Kyrgyzstan is the Mid-Asian “Horn of Africa” w/major civil-unrest and anti-Chinese sentiment is rampant.
Somebody been practicing MS Flight Sim a lotta hours in the tent?

I quit watching network news (hell, pretty much all TV) about 5 years ago. Did wonders for my blood pressure.

There was a gov’t agent aboard carrying a super secret bio weapon. He broke the vial, thus-zombie outbreak on a plane. Super spy satellite beamed in Samuel L. Jackson, but since they weren’t snakes, he was infected. Interplanetary alliance was contacted about the situation. They deployed a portal to a parallel universe where zombies are pets and the most popular thing on their version of the internet (similar, but signals are received through an ocular implant).
It’s the only reasonable explanation.

Ok, Jen’s theory beats mine.

Several people have asked me where this plane is over the past few days. I tell them all the same thing: I don’t have it.

24/7 news coverage moved it firmly out of news and into entertainment. So making things up as they go along has become acceptable. No real info – make it up. As long as there’s no dead air it’s acceptable.

While it’s been a fascinating, if sad mystery, I rather think this plane was allahu akbared into the water days ago and as big as we think a 777 is the sea is so much bigger that it might take years before pieces of it are found. If ever. Bit of a failure as a terrorist act, though, since everybody is scratching their heads and saying “Huh?” rather than digging out rubble.

Talking this over with my father (P-3/P-2 pilot) this morning and he had a interesting take on things.

Paraphrasing: It seems to that the biggest issue is lack of facts about the flight; specifically where it went after the transponder was turned off.
The problem is what the late Senator Hayakawa once wrote about in his career as a linguist. There is no such thing as an “information vacuum” because rumor and speculation will fill a developing information vacuum, if there is public interest.

I suppose we will all have to exercise great patience.