This. Scary.

If that plane takes off from some airport it will have fighter jets on it's a$$ like flies on ****!

Ummmm, if it was not possible to track it some week ago, why should it be possible/easy to track it now?

Definitely one of the weirdest stories in a while...

Because now it's a threat.

This is what planes look like on radar; a dot:

http://www.adacel.com/Assets/Radar%20Pic%204.jpg

The additional info is either input by ATC when the squawk is assigned, or on all Mode S transponders it is an automatic data feed WHICH THE OWNER PROGRAMS IN.

In other words, the primary return for a 777 looks exactly the same as a 757 or an A340. The "badguys" only have to reprogram the transponder (10 minute job) and be departing from a complicit or ignorant country.

I could go out to my helicopter and reprogram the transponder to read the code for MH370 and the local ATC would not know that I was not an airliner (except that my speed would be too slow).

could the transponder be re-programmed in flight?

we have military assets in the area, esp in the Indian ocean, which would have had at least some primary radar running at the time. the farther it flew, the better chance there is that a US navy asset saw it on primary radar.

the USA and india have been pretty firm and for no really good cited reason that it went west, i bet thats why.

All true except they have to file.

Cash, that's representative of ATC radar. I believe most military radar is higher fidelity.

I don't know about all, but I know the one on my helicopter could.
And? You call in your flight plan (or file on DUATS) and indicate that you are a G-450, N450SW.
You've already reprogrammed your Mode S transponder with the hexadecimal code "AD364C"
You get into the air, your speed checks out, your code checks out, and as far as ATC is concerned, you are N450SW.
Unless somebody physically SEES this 777 in the air (you did repaint it, right?) then nobody is the wiser.

You're crossing the ADIZ on a valid flight plan. Your target is LA, which is also the required landing point for port of entry. So nobody realizes you are rogue until you ignore ATC vectors. You're already over downtown LA before intercepts out of Edwards can arrive. Even if you are intercepted, you now squawk 7500 or you give a 'mayday' for mechanical malfunctions. They have to get permission to shoot down. By then, you have nosed the 777 over into the heart of the city. Maybe with a nuke on board, maybe not.

What do the experts make of the SIA68 theory? Supposedly, MH370 could have followed Singapore Airlines flight 68 using its radar "shadow" as cover into Indian airspace (then into Pakistan and possibly Iran) after meeting up with SIA68 west of Malaysia shortly after the Malaysian military radar lost contact with it.

Early on, I theorized that they went to Pakistan.
While a 777 could make it to Iran, they were destined for Beijing. Unless they had a reason to be carrying the extra fuel, they would not have enough to get to Iran (IMO).

If they were shadowing another plane closely enough to avoid making a separate radar return, that other planes TCAS would have been screaming the whole time. My bet is that they dropped below long range ATC radar coverage. However this does not account for why naval radar would not have picked them up. A 777 flying at 300ft over the ocean is not an everyday occurrence.

Yahoo News stated this morning that there is reason to believe that the plane dropped below 5000ft to avoid radar. This keeps getting weirder and weirder...

Does the other airplane's TCAS not rely on the radar transponder? MH370 had that turned off.

:(

You're right. My mistake. I thought TCAS used an active radar return system.

Meanwhile we can't keep a desperate laborer with $2 in his pocket from sneaking into the country.

We can, but not in a way that people could easily stomach.

http://www.reseau-asie.com/images/ed...001_dmz_gm.jpg

cash I had a second comment typed but deleted before clicking 'post'. In short it said we can have relative safety or we can have good feelings about how we treat the rest of the world, but not both.