Personally, I find the whole military radar thing to be extremely suspicious. The fact that this plane flew over the whole country without being noticed even though it was tracked on military radar is just too implausible. Yet it happened.
Personally, I think perhaps somebody on duty was involved somehow. Perhaps bribed, perhaps threatened, maybe both, or just a co-conspirator.
It's a crazy idea and pretty unlikely. But to me it seems like the least unlikely scenario, for now.
I don't think it would take too much skill to merge your radar blip with another airliner. Just pull up behind it and slightly above it (to avoid the wake turbulence) and get close. Radar doesn't have superb spatial resolution, so you don't have to pull perfectly in line with the other plane. As long as you're fairly close to it (within a couple of plane-lengths, I would imagine) then the two planes will show up as a single radar contact. Sitting right behind another plane like that while it's cruising would not be too difficult.
Personally, I think perhaps somebody on duty was involved somehow. Perhaps bribed, perhaps threatened, maybe both, or just a co-conspirator.
It's a crazy idea and pretty unlikely. But to me it seems like the least unlikely scenario, for now.
I don't think it would take too much skill to merge your radar blip with another airliner. Just pull up behind it and slightly above it (to avoid the wake turbulence) and get close. Radar doesn't have superb spatial resolution, so you don't have to pull perfectly in line with the other plane. As long as you're fairly close to it (within a couple of plane-lengths, I would imagine) then the two planes will show up as a single radar contact. Sitting right behind another plane like that while it's cruising would not be too difficult.