Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is missing — That much we know.
But as we near the conclusion of the 10th day since the the Boeing 777-200 disappeared from the skies, officials still have no clue of what became of the jet or the 239 souls on board.
See also: Where Is the Plane? 19 Possible Scenarios
We were told the transponders were deliberately turned off, and that the plane continued "pinging" a satellite as it traveled for up to seven and a half hours. Based on that data, officials have said it then traveled in one of two directions: northward over India and to the Middle East and Europe, or southward into the deep blue expanse of the Indian Ocean.
Somebody was up to something. But where did it go? How did it sneak past so many radar systems? One man has a theory that has gotten the attention of scores on Twitter — and spawned a full discussion on Reddit.
What if, they are wondering, the plane was able to evade radar detection by flying in the shadow of another jet?
That's the theory — neither slightly proven nor recognized as a possibility by officials conducting the search, to be sure — put forth by a 30-year-old aviation hobbyist, and it's making the rounds as armchair observers of one of the biggest mysteries in modern aviation seek a plausible explanation.
With no new information coming in over 48 hours from the authorities in Malaysia, and plenty of half-baked theories (Aliens! Meteor strike!), this one is worth reading (trust us, we've seen lots of them).
That the plane was able to escape both civilian and military radar detection is a feat unto itself — investigators say it would take significant knowledge of a 777's communications systems to pull one entirely off the grid. Even more so, that it was able to soar across the Bay of Bengal and up into India, Pakistan, or Kazakhstan — if the data holds true — is mind-boggling. Those are some of the most patrolled skies in the world. Both India and Pakistan officials say they detected no unknown planes flying through their respective airspaces.
It's a crazy idea. It's mad. But it's fascinating in a Jason Bourne-like escape from the Andaman Sea kind of way.
It comes our way from Keith Ledgerwood, who posted it on his tumblr of the same name. He's not the kind of expert you find on CNN. But the 30-year-old entrepreneur, IT consultant, and aviation hobbyist from Cincinnati, Ohio, has taken a deeper look at some of the public data and found something that we haven't seen elsewhere before today.
He writes:
Starting with a set of facts that have been made available publicly and verified over the past few days, I first plotted MH370’s course onto an aviation IFR map which shows the airways and waypoints used to navigate the skies. I plotted the point where it stopped transmitting ADS-B information at 1721UTC. I then plotted the Malaysian military radar track from that point towards “VAMPI”, “GIVAL”, and then onward toward “IGREX” on P628 ending with where the plane should be at 1815UTC when military radar lost contact.
That map looks like this:

There's nothing too profound there, Ledgerwood readily acknowledges. But when he looked to see what other planes were nearby at precisely the same time he found another Boeing 777 en-route from Singapore and flying high over the Andaman Sea: Singapore Airlines flight 68. It was traveling on the same path that Malaysian military radar had shown MH370 headed towards at precisely the same time, he says.
Was MH370 using SIA68 as radar cover? he wondered.
"It became apparent as I inspected SIA68’s flight path history that MH370 had maneuvered itself directly behind SIA68 at approximately 18:00 UTC and over the next 15 minutes had been following SIA68," he writes. "All the pieces of my theory had been fitting together with the facts that have been publicly released and I began to feel a little uneasy."

Singapore Airlines Flight 68 proceeded, as was its plan all along, across the Andaman Sea, into the Bay of Bengal, and up through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and its final destination: Barcelona, Spain (watch it here). MH370, if the pings are to be believed, wasn't all that far behind.
So by now, you may have caught on or you may be scratching your head and wondering if I’ve gone insane! How does SIA68 have anything to do with MH370 disappearing? Remember the one challenge that is currently making everyone doubt that MH370 actually flew to Turkmenistan, Iran, China, or Kyrgyzstan? That challenge is the thought that MH370 couldn’t make it through several key airspaces such as India or Afghanistan without being detected by the military.
It is my belief that MH370 likely flew in the shadow of SIA68 through India and Afghanistan airspace. As MH370 was flying “dark” without transponder/ADS-B output, SIA68 would have had no knowledge that MH370 was anywhere around and as it entered Indian airspace, it would have shown up as one single blip on the radar with only the transponder information of SIA68 lighting up ATC and military radar screens.
So where did it go? if Ledgerwood's theory is to be believed, once the plane was safely out of range of the radar systems in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, the pilot(s) would simply "break off from the shadow of SIA68" and land at any of the runways — known or unknown — near Xingjian province, Kyrgyzstan, or Turkmenistan.
It's crazy, yes. But having examined nearly every theory being floated on the Internet and TV, this one is at least worth thinking about. If the data examined by Ledgerwood is to be believed, then there was a plane in the near vicinity of the Malaysian Airlines plane. And its pilots had no idea what was tailing closely behind ...
There are too many oddities in this whole story that don’t make sense if this theory isn’t the answer in my opinion. Why did MH370 fly a seemingly haphazard route and suddenly start heading northwest towards the Andaman Islands on P628? If not for this reason, it seems like a rather odd maneuver. The timing and evasive actions seem deliberate. Someone went through great lengths to attempt to become stealthy and disable ACARS, transponder/ADS-B (even though SATCOM to Inmarsat was left powered).
After looking at all the details, it is my opinion that MH370 snuck out of the Bay of Bengal using SIA68 as the perfect cover. It entered radar coverage already in the radar shadow of the other 777, stayed there throughout coverage, and then exited SIA68’s shadow and then most likely landed in one of several land locations north of India and Afghanistan.
Read the full theory over at Ledgerwood's tumblr, a site which he is continually updating as readers write him with more feedback. "I've had hundreds of emails from pilots, radar techs, military pilots, et cetera ... all agreeing that it is the most plausible theory they have heard so far," he says when asked what he's heard from readers. "I am not a radar expert, but have heard from a couple self-proclaimed radar techs who agree that a plane flying even 500 feet below SQ68 (so as to avoid wake turbulence) would show up as only one primary radar return."
But some experts, like Captain John Cox, a retired pilot and founder of the aviation consulting firm Safety Operating Systems, remain skeptical of theories like these.
"Where is the airplane? There is no pictures, videos, or satellite images of it. A hanger large enough for a 777 is hard to hide ... there are not very many of them in developing countries," he says. "Everything remains on the table, even the far fetched such as this one. I have discounted nothing at this stage but continue to believe that it is in the water and I am not optimistic about any survivors."
We have questions too. Does the piggy-back theory work at all altitudes — or do the planes both have to be at the same level? Couldn't the first plane see that it wasn't being trailed by an intruder?
And Ledgerwood, when asked, has answers.
"The first plane would have no clue it was being trailed as it's collision avoidance systems rely on other plane's transponders," he says of our questioning of his theory. To the first question: "I have had several knowledgeable radar techs and others communicate with me that they firmly believe a plane flying say 500-feet below the other without transmitting a secondary (transponder/ADS-B) signal would show as one primary radar blip on radar."
If anything, it's a fascinating example of an armchair hobbyist coming up with a theory using available data, a few hours of determination, and a hunch. It certainly raises more questions than it answers.
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