My first theory was that they had flown the jet to the Philippines, but it seems they didn’t have enough fuel for that so obviously that was out.
The Indian Ocean didn’t seem likely, because they couldn’t land on Diego Garcia and the station there would probably have noticed something if they flew by...but maybe the station did notice something and it’s just possible to investigate it now.
One of the problems with this is not only all the little, lax-security countries (such as Malaysia) doing CYA, but the Chinese, who do not want anybody near their territory and seem to have not been cooperating at all, even though most of the passengers were Chinese.
However, the issue is the fuel. If they had only enough to go to Beijing, they couldn’t have gotten to the Philippines (in one direction) or much past Diego Garcia (in the other). But if they had more fuel, for one reason or another, then there are all sorts of destinations within range.
The Indian Ocean seems like a logical pass-through point, since they could access places like Somalia and other failed-state areas where they could easily land the plane. Well, not easily, because any runway they had built would probably not be exactly easy to land on. But the pirates from this area have kidnapped lots of people with construction skills, so perhaps they made their slave labor build a giant runway.
Re-check your coordinates. The plane left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. The distance from Kuala Lumpur to the farthest of the Philippines islands is less than half the distance to Beijing.
The fuel on-board was reported to be enough for Beijing (5.5 hrs), plus another 2 hrs. At 500 mph, that’s a radius of some 3,750 miles - roughly the distance from Dallas to Honolulu. That’s a LOT of globe to cover if it truly was “diverted” by unknowns on-board.
They could get away with a 3500 foot runway since the plane wold be low on fuel and not need a long runway to LAND.
Taking off, loaded with fuel is another matter and they would probably need a 5,500 foot runway. - tom
The fuel determines the radius of where they could have gone.
I was thinking it the jet made it to land, it would go to Myanmar(Burma) as that would be remote enough for a terrorist group to hang out and maybe hide a jet in the jungle.
We are now seven days out, and the hope that the plane landed anywhere on terra firma is a very slim one.
“My first theory was that they had flown the jet to the Philippines, but it seems they didn’t have enough fuel for that so obviously that was out.”
How do you know how much fuel was put on board that aircraft. For all we know the fuelers of the aircraft were Muzzies, were in on this op, and loaded max fuel which means they could fly up to 9,400 nautical miles depending on the 777 model it is.