KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 — Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 descended to as low as 5,000 feet and cruised along commercial routes during its journey, likely to avoid being spotted on radar, said investigators on hunt for the missing aircraft.
The technical team of experts tasked to locate the missing Boeing 777 told the New Straits Times (NST) in an exclusive report today that it is possible the plane was circumnavigating below radar detection for most of the eight hours it was reported missing, using a technique known as “terrain masking”.
“The person who had control over the aircraft has a solid knowledge of avionics and navigation, and left a clean track. It passed low over Kelantan, that was true,” an unnamed official was quoted as saying.
“It is possible that the aircraft had hugged the terrain in some areas that are mountainous to avoid radar detection,” the official was reported as saying, adding that the flight had used busy airways over the Bay of Bengal.
The report said that by keeping to commercial routes, the low-flying plane could have managed to stay inconspicuous despite having been detected on primary radars operated by the military across the nations and bypassed the commercial radars of three countries as the plane’s transponder was switched off.
“To them MH370 would appear to be just another commercial aircraft on its way to its destination,” it added.
The Boeing 777-200ER was initially believed to be cruising at 35,000 feet 120 nautical miles of Kota Bharu when it vanished without trace from the Subang Air Traffic Control radar on March 8.
The stealthy technique employed by military pilots uses topography to mask approach but is considered a perilous technique in low-light conditions. An aircraft weighing 250 tonnes flying at a low altitude may cause “spatial-disorientation and airsickness” and increased pressure on its airframe, according to the report.
“While the ongoing search is divided into two massive areas, the data that the investigating team is collating is leading us more towards the north,” the paper quoted a source as saying.
The investigations are also focussing on countries with disused airports with the capability of handling aircraft such as the the Boeing 777-200ER, the paper said, adding the parameters would be narrowed down to the plane’s eight hours in air.
“As soon as the first country comes up with evidence of the flight’s position after its last confirmed position (320km northwest of Penang), we will be able to refine the search and better determine its possible location,” said the source.
The Guardian reported yesterday that the final transmission from plane — “Alright, good night” — was uttered after someone onboard disabled the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), a system used to collate the plane’s health to MAS.
The UK newspaper stated that the chronology indicates that the person who last contacted Subang Air Traffic Control was aware that the critical communications system was no longer functional at the time.
The latest assumptions are based on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s revelation on Saturday that the satellite data indicated that the plane could be in one of two corridors: a northern arc from northern Thailand to the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in central Asia, or a southern one from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.
Soon after the police searched the houses of MH370 pilots Zaharie Ahmad Shah and Fariq Abdul Hamid in Shah Alam, taking a flight simulator the former hand-built to mimic that of the Boeing 777-200ER that is now the subject of an international hunt by 25 countries.
Commercial satellite firm, Inmarsat, confirmed that one of its satellites was pinged approximately once an hour by MH370 between the time it severed communications with ATC and the final “electronic handshake” at 8.11am on March 8.
MAS yesterday confirmed that MH370 was fuelled to stay in the air until the time of the final time MH370 pinged Inmarsat’s satellite.
Following the discovery, search and rescue operations in the South China Sea that had been the site of much of the initial search were terminated, with the assets re-deployed to the Indian Ocean.
