Thai Air Force radar may have picked up MH370

[aussiebebe]

I don't understand all this fuss about Thailand not passing on radar data.
From what I can gather, the Thai radar spotted MH370 at 1.28 heading towards the Strait of Malacca yet Malaysia detected it on their military radar at 2:14 - so what does it matter that Thailand didn't report their data?
The Malaysian's already had the last known location of the plane and their investigation wouldn't have been affected.

The way I see it, the Malaysian's didn't want to admit that they had let an unidentified aircraft pass through their sovereign territory without identifying or intercepting it. They are just passing the buck and Thailand is an easy scapegoat.

[chiangmaisurprise]

Awesome Theory but this is more likely what happened:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

This isn't the best theory yet:

http://keithledgerwood.tumblr.com/post/79838944823/did-malaysian-airlines-370-disappear-using-sia68-sq68

[Roota]

I don't understand all this fuss about Thailand not passing on radar data.

The fuss is from the usual Thai-bashing types who, additionally in this case, don't have the first idea about how military radar works or how closely guarded its data tends to be, especially in this part of the world. They read a couple paragraphs of a garbled news story and then fire off their all-purpose diatribes. It's reflex, nothing more.

Believe me, Thai military and commercial aviation radar systems are very capable, as are the people who operate them. The delay in releasing their tracking of MH370 could be due to any number of reasons, but incompetence with radar is not one of them.

[Mojomor]

Thailand seem to be the only country around here to come up with data. What about Indonesia, which should have seen the plane for a long time. India is ducking for cover implying it's radar on Andaman and Nicobar was switched off for the night.

Diplomacy has a way of working,in which one does not offer info, unless somebody asks ---- QED.

[JetsetBkk]

I don't understand all this fuss about Thailand not passing on radar data.

From what I can gather, the Thai radar spotted MH370 at 1.28 heading towards the Strait of Malacca yet Malaysia detected it on their military radar at 2:14 - so what does it matter that Thailand didn't report their data?

The Malaysian's already had the last known location of the plane and their investigation wouldn't have been affected.

<snip>

I presume - and very much hope - that the time of 01:28 reported by Thai air force spokesman Air Vice Marshal Montol Suchookorn was Malaysia time and not Thailand time.

Otherwise . . .

[Blindside]

Lots of ignorance here about how military radar and civilian transponders work. From the thousands of blips that Thai military radar has picked up over the last month, 95% of it is civilian ho-hum traffic. They have very little interest in each individual commercial plane. This is a classic hindsight is 20/20 scenario IF it was the plane that they picked up.

What they are guilty of is not showing initiative. Seemingly a national trait, but this is all getting a bit ridiculous.

Part of the problem is that nobody knows where the hell the plane is, why does some guy in the south behind a radar screen have to smell?

International media are rich talking this up. Not many military establishments want to give any clues about their capabilities and methods. This might also be why the Thais have held back until it became more clear that this MIGHT be the plane. Remember for the first few days (of 10) it was believed the plane was in the South China Sea. It was only officially announced a few days ago that in fact the plane deviated and flew for hours after contact was broken.

The plane was in a major flight corridor. Now that there is a developing theory and more information about the path, the radar now has significance.

We should all be looking at the Malaysians, the Thai AF is a side-show!

[hawker9000]

I have a feeling the worst actually hasn't even happened yet.

[noikrit]

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If you think Thailand is the only country , agency , withholding info on this I doubt it .... There is a lot more to this story and I believe a lot more info being with held ... time will tell ...I feel for the passanges families ... no closure is a heavy burden for anyone ....

Come on...It is not because it is your country that you should defend the total lack of commitment and unprofessional behavior of the army while a civil plane with over 200 persons has dissappeared. I am curious to know how you would react if your son, daughter or mother was on board that plane. How would you feel?
Your answer basically says that more people in Thailand believe the army handled properly, making the whole world think ALL Thai's have no common sense, are selfish and careless. STOP defending the indefensible just because it is your country.

I have no Ida what you are dribbling on about ... Read my post again ! ... I stated that I believe there is a lot more to come out of this Plane Disalearance then any news agency has reported .... Get a life !! TROLL

IMO, If you would have started the sentence - 'Thailand is the not the only country.....' That would have been a lot better than what you wrote.

Yep your dead right .... and thats excactly what I meant ....

[tetleythedog]

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What this report doesn't point out is that the Thai Military knew this ten days ago. The report I read quotes Air Vice Marshal Montol Suchookorn as saying "but did not share the data earlier because officials "did not pay any attention to it" and were not specifically asked for it."

Just let so many boats and aircraft search in the wrong places for ten days.

I bet the Thai people feel really safe , knowing that they are protected by people of such high intelligence !!! It's comparible to having Homer Simpson as the US President !

[Bender]

few days ago i did read the newspaper from my country, and i can said that, the journalist was completely gobsmacked by the answer of the thai army.

"Nobody asked us"

[Theoutsider]

Always moaning.

[kimbathewhitelion]

No disrespect to the ones lost, but picturing Thai Air Force. A paper airplane with a Lego pilot...lol.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[HappyinNE]

My wonder is why the Thai military has not seen a rash of resignations. None of this transfer to an inactive post. They are all inactive. A quote that I copied from a Yahoo source sums it up pretty well:

"It's just bizarre they didn't come forward before," Scott Hamilton, managing director of aviation consultancy Leeham Co., said of Thai authorities. "It may be too late to help the search ... but maybe them and the Malaysian military should do joint military exercises in incompetence."

[KamalaRider]

I'm very surprised no one with a air force military background hasn't reponded yet.

In the military sectors, in all countries around the world, they don't share data with anyone, except maybe sometimes with their allies.

If ordinary people only knew what is up in the sky 24/7, they would have choked on their breakfast.

The normality is that surveillance, read spy planes, are circling around the globe on a daily basis and what if the Thai AF picked up a plane without transpoders or any other type of sending/receiving eqipment, but size as a 747, as big blip on their radar.

At least I would have assumed if I was a radar technician that it was one of the US radar planes or Chinese or Russian. Why not a N/S Korean if they have any.

At first they would have communication with US about it and that would have taken its time.

Later, again I assume, they wouldn't have shared the info anyway, because in every military unit exists the notion that you don't share data to reveal your technical capability.

This is a NORM in all other countries, what Thailand have done is actually to brake these rules.

In short, I don't understand how most people would assume any military to share any information to the public.

They certainly don't in Europe or the US, unless it's not revealing "secrets" and what about Israel, they have together with the US the most advanced military technology and have you ever heard they have revealed anything in the past?

Why do you people think Snowdon is chased and persecuted by the NSA, US military, FBI and whatnot, because he revealed/s known facts?

Edited March 20, 2014 by KamalaRider

[TPI]

You have to smile and shake your head! Thailand...............? Military..............? Air defence..................?

[TPI]

Australia has "Over the horizon" radar capability, with a presumed range of some thousands of kilometers! Surely they should have picked up something???

[KamalaRider]

Australia has "Over the horizon" radar capability, with a presumed range of some thousands of kilometers! Surely they should have picked up something???

They can really track with radar for over 3370 Km?

Maybe the planes nearest way point from Derby, Australia

Edited March 20, 2014 by KamalaRider

[dude123]

Australia has "Over the horizon" radar capability, with a presumed range of some thousands of kilometers! Surely they should have picked up something???

They can really track with radar for over 4750 Km?

Looks like the Aussie's did find the crash site from what they are saying. Two large pieces, one 24m long with debri field around them. Should know pretty soon now. They could be wrong, but they seem fairly confident without confirming 100% yet.

Edited March 20, 2014 by dude123

[KamalaRider]

Australia has "Over the horizon" radar capability, with a presumed range of some thousands of kilometers! Surely they should have picked up something???

They can really track with radar for over 4750 Km?

Looks like the Aussie's did find the crash site from what they are saying. Two large pieces, one 24m long with debri field around them. Should know pretty soon now. They could be wrong, but they seem fairly confident without confirming 100% yet.

If they have, Mr. Chris Goodfellow was probably correct in his article then.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

[KamalaRider]

Follow on BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26659583

[dude123]

Australia has "Over the horizon" radar capability, with a presumed range of some thousands of kilometers! Surely they should have picked up something???

They can really track with radar for over 4750 Km?

Looks like the Aussie's did find the crash site from what they are saying. Two large pieces, one 24m long with debri field around them. Should know pretty soon now. They could be wrong, but they seem fairly confident without confirming 100% yet.

If they have, Mr. Chris Goodfellow was probably correct in his article then.

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2014/03/mh370-electrical-fire/

That article sort of make sense, but then we get info that the left turn was programed in about 12 minutes before the co-piolet said "all right good night". That's where it doesn't make sense anymore about the fire.

Something still does not add up as it's well known now about the US navy base at Diego Garcia which would have picked up the plane on their radars but have kept silent about it.

Edited March 20, 2014 by dude123

[KamalaRider]

I don't trust media if it's them who says the plane was programmed to make a left turn 12 min. before the goodnight.

I prefer to trust professionals more.

Edited March 20, 2014 by KamalaRider

[dude123]

I don't trust media if it's them who says the plane was programmed to make a left turn 12 min. before the goodnight.

I prefer to trust professionals more.

I don't know who to trust as like I said, the Diego Garcia base was never mentioned by mainstream media in regards to their radars which would have tracked that plane. All I know is that it's been so long now that if a crash site was staged after, none of us would know for sure anymore as enough time has gone by to do it.

Edited March 20, 2014 by dude123

[hanno]

Again, it would appear that a lot of countries were/are holding back data. I am watching BBC and some expert said that many countries do not want the world to know how good, or indeed how bad, their tracking capabilities are.

[hawker9000]

I don't trust media if it's them who says the plane was programmed to make a left turn 12 min. before the goodnight.

I prefer to trust professionals more.

I don't know who to trust as like I said, the Diego Garcia base was never mentioned by mainstream media in regards to their radars which would have tracked that plane. All I know is that it's been so long now that if a crash site was staged after, none of us would know for sure anymore as enough time has gone by to do it.

I'm not sure radar operators on DG spend all their time focusing on primary radar returns and commercial traffic at every point around the periphery of the Indian Ocean, or that they were ever actually "tracking" this flight. Any radar site on DG, no matter how advanced, is still quite a ways away from almost all the areas under discussion, and a radar's still a radar. Assuming they have sensor resources far superior to the ATC facilities in countries like Malaysia & Thailand, I'm still not sure you can assume they would have had the ability to "track" this flight via radar below a certain radar floor, if at all, or by any other means at all. Use of other sensors? Maybe, but the more exotic the more the requirement for coordination ahead of time. I wouldn't just assume DG is withholding tracking data it "supposedly" has, and that it wouldn't by some means, even if "backchannel", contribute to narrowing the search area if it could. I would expect they spend far more time looking at what's going on in the other direction, up toward the Pakistani-Indian border and of course the Middle East, and monitoring other types of traffic (e.g., PRC naval units operating in the IO, possibly anti-pirate ops, etc.).

[a99az]

So if you invade Thailand with your airborne foresees first you can be sure of a good weeks head start.

[dude123]

I don't trust media if it's them who says the plane was programmed to make a left turn 12 min. before the goodnight.

I prefer to trust professionals more.

I don't know who to trust as like I said, the Diego Garcia base was never mentioned by mainstream media in regards to their radars which would have tracked that plane. All I know is that it's been so long now that if a crash site was staged after, none of us would know for sure anymore as enough time has gone by to do it.

I'm not sure radar operators on DG spend all their time focusing on primary radar returns and commercial traffic at every point around the periphery of the Indian Ocean, or that they were ever actually "tracking" this flight. Any radar site on DG, no matter how advanced, is still quite a ways away from almost all the areas under discussion, and a radar's still a radar. Assuming they have sensor resources far superior to the ATC facilities in countries like Malaysia & Thailand, I'm still not sure you can assume they would have had the ability to "track" this flight via radar below a certain radar floor, if at all, or by any other means at all. Use of other sensors? Maybe, but the more exotic the more the requirement for coordination ahead of time. I wouldn't just assume DG is withholding tracking data it "supposedly" has, and that it wouldn't by some means, even if "backchannel", contribute to narrowing the search area if it could. I would expect they spend far more time looking at what's going on in the other direction, up toward the Pakistani-Indian border and of course the Middle East, and monitoring other types of traffic (e.g., PRC naval units operating in the IO, possibly anti-pirate ops, etc.).

7 hours after it vanished, at least 10 people in the Maldivies have claimed to have seen what appears to be flight MH370 flying exxesively low over their islands as they claim they saw the red stipe on the plane and except for water planes, never saw such a huge commercial aircraft fly so low there. DG would have for sure picked that one up. There must be more to this story than is being reported.

Edited March 20, 2014 by dude123

[hawker9000]

I don't trust media if it's them who says the plane was programmed to make a left turn 12 min. before the goodnight.

I prefer to trust professionals more.

I don't know who to trust as like I said, the Diego Garcia base was never mentioned by mainstream media in regards to their radars which would have tracked that plane. All I know is that it's been so long now that if a crash site was staged after, none of us would know for sure anymore as enough time has gone by to do it.

I'm not sure radar operators on DG spend all their time focusing on primary radar returns and commercial traffic at every point around the periphery of the Indian Ocean, or that they were ever actually "tracking" this flight. Any radar site on DG, no matter how advanced, is still quite a ways away from almost all the areas under discussion, and a radar's still a radar. Assuming they have sensor resources far superior to the ATC facilities in countries like Malaysia & Thailand, I'm still not sure you can assume they would have had the ability to "track" this flight via radar below a certain radar floor, if at all, or by any other means at all. Use of other sensors? Maybe, but the more exotic the more the requirement for coordination ahead of time. I wouldn't just assume DG is withholding tracking data it "supposedly" has, and that it wouldn't by some means, even if "backchannel", contribute to narrowing the search area if it could. I would expect they spend far more time looking at what's going on in the other direction, up toward the Pakistani-Indian border and of course the Middle East, and monitoring other types of traffic (e.g., PRC naval units operating in the IO, possibly anti-pirate ops, etc.).

7 hours after it vanished, at least 10 people in the Maldivies have claimed to have seen what appears to be flight MH370 flying exxesively low over their islands as they claim they saw the red stipe on the plane and except for water planes, never saw such a huge commercial aircraft fly so low there. DG would have for sure picked that one up. There must be more to this story than is being reported.

It looks like about 600mi fm DG to the Maldives. Not a trivial distance if the target is flying low.

...."claimed".... "Red stripe" (at night)? "Excessively" low (how low is that; if it's all that low radar won't be able to see it, certainly not 600mi away, anyway!)? "Never saw before"? But there might be some substance to it. There might be a lot more to the whole thing. Who knows? I DO know at times like this there's always a crowd locked & loaded, quick to jump on the U.S. military/U.S. government "cover-up"/conspiracy bandwagon. 'Makes for good Saturday Night Live/Letterman/Leno material I guess.

[dude123]

7 hours after it vanished, at least 10 people in the Maldivies have claimed to have seen what appears to be flight MH370 flying exxesively low over their islands as they claim they saw the red stipe on the plane and except for water planes, never saw such a huge commercial aircraft fly so low there. DG would have for sure picked that one up. There must be more to this story than is being reported.

It looks like about 600mi fm DG to the Maldives. Not a trivial distance if the target is flying low.

...."claimed".... "Red stripe" (at night)? "Excessively" low (how low is that; if it's all that low radar won't be able to see it, certainly not 600mi away, anyway!)? "Never saw before"? But there might be some substance to it. There might be a lot more to the whole thing. Who knows? I DO know at times like this there's always a crowd locked & loaded, quick to jump on the U.S. military/U.S. government "cover-up"/conspiracy bandwagon. 'Makes for good Saturday Night Live/Letterman/Leno material I guess., but it's hard not to smell a rat with this one that's all.

I don't know either but the whole story smells bad to me.

Edited March 21, 2014 by dude123

[hawker9000]

7 hours after it vanished, at least 10 people in the Maldivies have claimed to have seen what appears to be flight MH370 flying exxesively low over their islands as they claim they saw the red stipe on the plane and except for water planes, never saw such a huge commercial aircraft fly so low there. DG would have for sure picked that one up. There must be more to this story than is being reported.

It looks like about 600mi fm DG to the Maldives. Not a trivial distance if the target is flying low.

...."claimed".... "Red stripe" (at night)? "Excessively" low (how low is that; if it's all that low radar won't be able to see it, certainly not 600mi away, anyway!)? "Never saw before"? But there might be some substance to it. There might be a lot more to the whole thing. Who knows? I DO know at times like this there's always a crowd locked & loaded, quick to jump on the U.S. military/U.S. government "cover-up"/conspiracy bandwagon. 'Makes for good Saturday Night Live/Letterman/Leno material I guess., but it's hard not to smell a rat with this one that's all.

I don't know either but the whole story smells bad to me.

I'd prefer you didn't include in your quoting of me things I didn't actually write. And I believe it's a violation of the forum rules. Please don't do it again. If inadvertent, please be more careful. Thanks.

'Honestly don't think there's sufficient cause (or even a reasonable suspicion) at this point to be pointing a finger at Diego Garcia personnel or operations. But if it makes you feel better... Nobody can (yet) say for sure that you're wrong.