Bizarre Indeed

"It's just bizarre they didn't come forward before. It may be too late to help the search ... but maybe (they) and the Malaysian military should do joint military exercises in incompetence."
Scott Hamilton, managing director, aviation consultancy Leeham Co.

• Photo By Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images

"[At 1:28 a.m. Thailand's military radar] was able to detect a signal, which was not a normal signal, of a plane flying in the direction opposite from the MH370 plane [back to Kuala Lumpur]. [Why did it take so long to release the information?] Because we did not pay any attention to it. The Royal Thai Air Force only looks after any threats against our country."
Air Vice-Marshal Montol Suchookorn, Thailand

Early in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, Malaysian officials suspected the plane had doubled back toward the Strait of Malacca, west of Malaysia. Malaysian military radar data took a week for them to confirm that suggested route. And just next door in Thailand their radar showed an unidentified plane, which might have been Flight 370, flying toward the strait, minutes after the jet's transponder signal was cut off.

The Thai air force spokesman Vice-Marshal Suchookorn, could not say with any degree of certainty whether the plane its military radar had detected was indeed Flight 370. Inconsequential, incidental, unimportant, coincidental, dismissed. At a minimum, according to safety experts, that radar data might have saved time and initial effort spent searching the South China Sea, far from the Indian Ocean.

"It's tough to tell, but that is a material fact that I think would have mattered", John Goglia, a former member of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board stated.

Once the plane caught on Thai radar had turned back toward Kuala Lumpur it turned right, toward Butterworth, a Malaysian city along the Strait of Malacca. Infrequent radar signals were received, not including data like the flight number. Thailand may not have wished to become involved, indifferent to the problems a neighbour was experiencing and the possible loss of 239 lives, but 25 other countries are making an effort.

Aircraft and ships are involved, scouring great tracts of territory, half in the remote waters of the southern Indian Ocean. Commander Williams Marks, speaking for the U.S. 7th Fleet described the search for the missing plane akin to locating a few people somewhere between New York and California.