another live news conference, authorities are saying there are reports a life raft has been spotted and there sending ships to the location now.

I think you have contradicted my answer and made a simple question over complicated for no real reason.

Whilst what you say is 100% right, radar does of have limitations and of course you need to have radar in the right areas, the question was rather simple, as too my answer.

So the simple answer to the question that was asked, is yes.

Although I doubt it in this age of Radar Surveillance, etc, the thought of Hypoxia does come up - and there is maybe wreckage in the icy wastes of Siberia.

As I said, I doubt it. Whilst there might be some black holes in radar coverage around Indo-China, I cannot imagine any Aircraft entering Chinese Airspace, Transponder on or not, and not being detected.

But if nothing is found in the Gulf of Thailand, they need to look farther afield - up to whatever distance the fuel on board would allow.

Malaysian transport minister says Vietinam helicopters have been dispatched to a floating yellow object that is a possible life raft that matches the color of the one installed in the missing aircraft, came direct from him few moments ago.

With respect, Ash - your answer was not accurate. If a transponder is switched off (or fails) then in 100% of cases the aircraft data label will definitely be lost on the controller's display. Modern ATC radar centres do not display primary paints on controller's displays, either because that data is not available, or to display it would clutter their displays (or both).

Sure, the world's military would maintain some level of primary-only radar coverage for identifying unidentified intruders, but that's not we're discussing here.

The whole reason primary radar is all but redundant is that there are so many limitations with it, as I explained in my previous post.

I thought my original answer was reasonably simple :) To make a blanket statement that the aircraft would still be showing on radar is generally incorrect in a modern civil ATC environment. That's why contact was lost in the first place :) Rescue services would have a more precise estimate of where the aircraft is, if your original statement were accurate.

Tamara,

Do you have a a link to the source for this info? Its not appearing on any of the news websites.

The minister said it at the latest press conference shown on news 24, however the part about being the same color fitted to the aircraft was on radio so not sure how accurate that part is.


http://m.heraldsun.com.au/news/malay...-1226849856500

http://mobile.news.com.au/

Turns out not to be a life raft
http://news.yahoo.com/vietnam-rescue...2--sector.html

I'm confused. I use planefinder.net, it shows MAS370 disappearing over Malaysia, not the ocean, about 0103.

I don't know how to get flightaware to show historic data.

German media just reports that the lab results of the examination of the oil that had been spotted in the area where the flight disappeared clearly show that the oil is not from the plane.

Source: Bild Zeitung, Germany (link not provided as the text is in German)

Also one of the suspects that used a stolen passport has been identified but they won't tell of which nationality he is. They only said that he is neither Malaysian nor from the province of XinJiang, China.

Source: http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Natio...rt-identified/