FOR an icon like Rupert Murdoch to theorise: “… MH 370 was effectively hidden perhaps in Northern Pakistan, like Bin Laden” shows bias (March 19).

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Even if MH 370 made a beeline for an airport in Pakistan, violating all rules, it would hardly make it.

Heavy, with 239 passengers, it would be carrying just the ‘required fuel’ to Beijing.

It took off at 12.40, and at 1.28 was still over the Gulf of Thailand, heading back for Kuala Lumpur. It would have used up around an hour’s fuel even before setting course for Pakistan.

Even if the fuel could be stretched out, it would still have to cross the Indian peninsula, somewhere. The entire East coast is lined up with powerful ground-radar systems, both military and civilian.

The main Indian landmass which also has intense ground-radar coverage would have to be traversed as well.

Flying low to avoid ground-radar detection would double or triple fuel consumption. The aircraft would be on empty fuel-tanks well short of any Pakistani airport. The direct route has to be ruled out.

Circumnavigating the subcontinent, flying north across Indochina and then West across mainland China to north Pakistan, without being spotted by ground radar would be an impossibility.

The aircraft could proceed southwestwards around the Indian peninsula, giving wide berth to the very powerful radar at Trivandrum on its tip; around Sri Lanka and the Maldives and then North across the Arabian Sea. This could possibly help in evading ground radar but would again bring up the question of flying on empty fuel tanks long before reaching even close to Pakistani borders.

Flying above, below or around the huge air mass that stands between Malaysia and Pakistan and reaching a Pakistani airport without being detected would be impossible.

Notwithstanding the other outlandish speculations, Mr Murdoch can rest assured that there is no possibility whatsoever of a giant B-777 carrying 239 passengers to be secretly tucked away in northern Pakistan. How the airliner would get there is anybody’s guess!

Capt. S. Afaq Rizvi
Karachi