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Expert debunks 'MH370 shadowing another plane'

MH370 A radar engineering consultant has debunked speculation that the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 may have trailed another aircraft to hide from military radars.

The consultant, Christian Wolff (right) , says such a scenario presupposes that the missing aircraft and the aircraft being followed are collaborating.

“Such a manoeuvre does not go unnoticed, because the minimum distance (between the two aircraft) must then be less than 150 metres.

“Otherwise every modern military radar will detect such a target to include two aircraft,” said Wolff, a former radar engineer with the German Air Force.

Most military radars have a better “range resolution” than 150 metres, and it is difficult to fly close behind another aircraft because of turbulence from the leading aircraft’s engines, he told Malaysiakini today.

As to whether MH370 could, by flying in a blind spot, have gone unnoticed by the other aircraft, Wolff suggested that this question be directed to an airline pilot.

He said this when asked about speculation on blogs yesterday, and reported by several media outlets, that after MH370 diverted off its original path, it used its collision avoidance radar to locate and follow Singapore Airlines flight SQ68 (or SIA68) upon reaching the Straits of Malacca.

This was to allow SIA68 and MH370 show up as a single blip on military radars, to enable MH370 to fly through highly militarised air spaces without arousing suspicion, the reports say.

'Several locations where it could have landed'

The original report by blogger and aviation enthusiast Keith Ledgerwood says:

"Once MH370 had cleared the volatile airspaces and was safe from being detected by military radar sites in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, it would have been free to break off from the shadow of SIA68 and could have then flown a path to its final landing site.  

"There are several locations along the flight path of SIA68 where it (MH370) could have easily broken contact, and flown and landed in Xingjian province (China), Kyrgyzstan or Turkmenistan.

"Each of these final locations would match up almost perfectly with the 7.5 hours of total flight time and trailing SIA68.  

"In addition, these locations are all possibilities that are on the ‘ARC’ and fit with the data provided by Inmarsat from the Satcom’s (satellite communications system’s) last known ping at 01:11UTC (8.11am local time)."

Meanwhile, online news portal Business Insider quotes two former pilots expressing scepticism over Ledgerwood's  theory.

The report quotes aviation expert and consultant Michael G Fortune as saying that the theory might be possible, but it would need a highly skilled pilot.

A former pilot Doug Moss, who is now an aircraft accident investigator, said the idea was "totally crazy", although it was possible for large aircraft to fly close to one another.

The hard part, Moss said, would be finding another plane that happened to be flying in the correct part of the world.

Nearly impossible

Wolff also disputed an alternative theory that the missing Boeing 777-200ER aircraft may have flown close to the ground to evade military radar.

Such tactic is known as "map of the earth" flying which, Wolff says means flying at an altitude of less than 100 metres above ground, or even 50 metres in some cases.

He said while experienced pilots can fly low enough, this technique would only be feasible if the aircraft stayed far enough from defence radar sites and the pilot would need to know exactly where these sites are.

"This is not a problem for a fighter plane, for it is equipped with a small radar cross section (RCS). For a Boeing with an approximately 50-fold RCS, it is nearly impossible," Wolff explained.

In addition, flying at such low altitudes would decrease the speed of the plane and increase fuel consumption.

"That is why I want to exclude this variant as being implausible," he added.

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