MH370 flew as low as 1,500m to avoid detection, says paper

The Malaysian Insider ^ | 17 March 2014 | The Malaysian Insider

[Meet the New Boss]

As the search for the missing flight MH370 enters its 10th day with few clues as to its whereabouts, the New Straits Times said today the Boeing 777-200ER dropped 5,000 feet (1,500m) to evade commercial radar detection.

In an exclusive story, the government-backed paper said investigators analysing MH370’s flight data revealed that the 200-tonne, fully laden twinjet descended 1,500m or even lower to evade commercial (secondary) radar coverage after it turned back from its flight path en route to Beijing.

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Investigators poring over MH370’s flight data had said the plane had flown low and used “terrain masking” as it flew over the Bay of Bengal and headed north towards land, the NST reported.

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“Terrain masking” refers to an ability to position an aircraft so there is natural earth hiding it from the radio waves sent from the radar system. It is a technique mostly used in aerial combat where military pilots would fly at extremely low elevations upon normally hilly or mountainous terrain to “mask” their approach.

Experts said flying a Boeing 777 in such a way would be dangerous, stressing the airframe and possibly causing those on board to be air sick and suffer from spatial disorientation.

[Sarah Barracuda]

According to a New York Times article about to be released, the turn that it made was done only by someone punching the code into the computer system, either while in flight or before the flight ever took off

[Kackikat]

So it didn’t go down immediately, and there is info on another flight personnel in a couple of articles. This is going on two weeks, and no sizable amount of debri found, it is getting questionable now as to a crash.

[Sarah Barracuda]

If this were Mechanical Failure, I would think the plane wreckage would have been found, and the U-Turn that was done by someone at the controls, if something was going on with the plane, I doubt they would have done it, just turned off auto pilot and try to bring the plane to land somewhere, they were already so close to Malaysia they could have easily brought it back..so now we have to determine this flight path was it done BEFORE the plane took off, if that is the case that is the ultimate game changer

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Meet the New Boss.