HN Explorer

How Did MH370 Not Trigger Alerts On Direction Change?

1 points by borrowedtime ↗ HN
I haven't seen anywhere on the news a discussion of how it was even possible that a plane could turn completely off course and not trigger any alerts.

Does anyone know about this?

I mean for example, if a plane is flying London to Paris, I would be extremely surprised if a 270 degree change of course didn't at the very least trigger authorities to investigate and attempt to contact the plane. At the time it turned it was surely in radar range right?

Basically, how could they possibly not have noticed at the time and therefore alerted someone at the time?!

I find this to be extremely scary in itself.

3 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 28.8 ms ] thread
yaur
The first big deviation happened during the handover from Malaysian to Vietnamese ATC... after that the plane was effectively lost and no one on the ground was really responsible for tracking it.
borrowedtime
But that's crazy in my view - how can a plane just turn back on itself and fly completely the wrong way for hours without anyone either noticing or alerting a higher authority. I mean, as far as I can tell this just wouldn't happen if flying from one location to another in the west.

Imagine if a plane took off from New York bound for Vancouver, and just turned back on itself and started flying out into the ocean. No one would notice or do anything?!

yaur
Middle of the night, middle of the ocean, no ATC responsible for it at that moment and likely both controllers were busy with the planes that they were responsible for... don't think its that mysterious.