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8th April 2014 20:20
Link to Post #1261
Re: Boeing MH370 disappears in flight with 239 passengers
Update by Duncan Steel, April 08:
I have so far modelled plausible aircraft paths for uniform speeds of 300, 400 and 460 knots, turning either northwards or southwards

Here is an expanded view of the northern paths:

Here is an expanded view of the southern paths:

I caution again that my ping rings positions were themselves entered by eye, and so may be erroneously placed by 10 km/10 nm, perhaps more.
[...]
An implication of this, if it is correct, would be devastating given that the searches have concentrated upon the Indian Ocean. The implication, of course, is that the LOS speed(s) of the aircraft do not favour one direction (north or south) over the other. Unless I have made a serious error somewhere, the Inmarsat engineers made a mistake in their analysis.
[...]
The posts, by Dr Yaoqiu Kuang, a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, draw attention to imagery from NASA’s Terra satellite which indicate a smoke plume rising from the Beshtash Valley (about 30 kilometres SSE of the town of Talas in Kyrgyzstan), and also thermal emission from the source location of the smoke. The Aqua satellite, which obtained imagery of the same area a few hours later, showed no such smoke plume.
Whilst the area is fairly densely covered in trees, it is at a high elevation and at this time of year covered in snow, so that a forest fire is contra-indicated. Dr Kuang also indicates evidence for rapid snow melting causing the river in the valley to rise.
The locations of Talas and the Beshtash Valley are shown in the graphic below, and can be seen to be fairly close to the termination of the hypothetical 460-knot northern path I have presented earlier in this post.
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8th April 2014 23:34
Link to Post #1262