Search for Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Drastically Narrows
Source: ABC News
American and British aviation officials have refined satellite signals from the missing Malaysia Flight 370 and created two possible flight paths that dramatically narrow the scope of the search to an area off the coast of Australia.
The two possible paths have the plane heading toward the South Pole and ending, experts believe, off of Australia.
U.S. officials familiar with the investigation tell ABC News that the hourly satellite pings from the jet had yielded far more clues than expected, enabling the focus of the search to be cut in half - from an area roughly the size of Texas to that of Arizona.
Calculations by UK and US experts had now been handed over to the Australians to help with the search.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/search-missing-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-drastically-narrows/story?id=22975958
Well, here's another news report to add to the confusion. This potential flight path doesn't seem to make any sense, but at least it's consistent with several reports from fishermen who claim to have seen the plane flying in a southerly direction.
= new reply since forum marked as read
All that we've found out since since indicates the plane turned west, to the Malacca Strait, then apparently left the strait travelling NW. If they do find the plane in the southern Indian Ocean, that would then need another turn, to the south, after the plane got past Sumatra.
The terminology of compass bearings is inconsistent. Some people use counter-clockwise measurement. Others use clockwise measurements like
If McKay was using the clockwise system, then his estimate of 260-265 points almost directly at the turnaround point. That leaves only the distance was an issue, and in his own words "It is very difficult to judge the distance..." He estimated about 40 miles (i.e. not close at all), when the distance would have been over 200 miles. It was not close enough to identify any features in either case. He saw only the light of what he described as a burning plane. If the plane had ascended to 45,000 feet at that time, on a clear night he might have seen a bright light over that distance.
We know the plane was under flight control when it made that turnaround, so it is certainly possible that the pilots had time to enter that waypoint (or had actually entered the waypoint preemptively at the beginning to the flight as a contingency) and switched to it before quickly being overcome. I am told that some pilots are very anal about entering escape routes in all their programs just to be prepared. I don't have any evidence that these pilots did that customarily, but I understand that would not be unusual.
It seems to me that, rather than impugning the integrity of these pilots without any evidence, they should be given the benefit of the doubt until we have solid evidence that they did anything other than try their best to fly the plane safely.
Here is a good map
Notice that the supposed wreckage is east of the curve and south of the farthest location reachable with the fuel on board under optimal conditions INCLUDING STRAIGHT LINE OF FLIGHT. There have been 12 days for the wreckage to drift, but it is clear that the plane could not have carried out a zigzag flight path and still crashed that far south.
There is, however, a flight path that describes exactly what I, and the whole world's media, have been saying - west across the peninsula, then north-west, then south, once it got north-west of Sumatra.
Here's a map where the edge of the circle is the flight limit from the last contact in the Sough China Sea:
Notice that it easily includes the spot where they're now searching, so it would be quite possible to reach the area they're now searching after the turns through the Malacca Strait. A line going south, passing just west of the tip of Sumatra, crosses the centre arc where the satellite positions the plane at 8:11am roughly due west of Perth - but they give a shaded area because that calculation cannot be precise, so it may have been towards the bottom of the shaded area. After that satellite contact, the plane could have flown up to an hour before finally crashing (the satellite pings are every hour), which enables it to reach the area they're now searching.
yes INDEED 
One cheek only?
then let up early because he scored points by bailing sooner
I'm going to have to write this down. It's getting very complicated.
Heck with it, just release the dog-bear-lion hairy kracken on him.
I remember last year right after the Boston bombing suspect was caught, my wingnut relative told me in a conspiratorial whisper "they won't tell you, but you know what those people are, don't you?" Because apparently the fact that Chechens are Muslims is some secret only the right wing media ever mentioned. 
That two large pieces of debris from the plane may have been detected 1500 miles Southwest of Perth, Australia, via satellite imagery. They broke into repeats of prime time, discussing this live right now. 
