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Thai military say they picked up an unidentified aircraft on radar heading across Malaysia towards the Strait of Malacca but didn’t come forward with the information because they were not specifically asked – Pic from dailymail.co.uk

Asian military officials may be staging a mass cover-up over missing flight MH370, because they do not want to expose gaping holes within their countries’ air defences, a leading aviation expert has suggested.

The Malaysian Airlines jet went missing 1.30am on Sunday March 9. But it wasn’t until the following Tuesday that the Malaysian Air Force reported they had spotted it on radar over the Strait of Malacca at 2.15am.

Daily Mail reports that now Thailand’s military say they detected a plane at 1.28am, eight minutes after MH370’s communications went down, heading towards the Strait but didn’t share the information because they weren’t wasn’t asked for it.

Writing on his blog, Aviation expert David Learmount said: ‘Maybe these states’ air defences, like Malaysia’s, are not what they are cracked up to be.

‘And maybe they wouldn’t want the rest of the world to know that.’

Mr Learmount, a former pilot and now operations and safety editor at the respected Flight Global publication, points out that MH370 might have flown over several Asian countries including Thailand, Burma, China, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.

He said they may be withholding vital radar data about Flight MH370 for fear it would expose gaping holes in their multibillion pound air defences.

If it emerges that an unidentified aircraft had been able to fly over a territory undetected and unchallenged it would amount to an embarrassing security failure for any country.

Regarding the Malaysian sighting Mr Learmount wrote: ‘Clearly they had let an unidentified aircraft pass through Malaysian sovereign territory without bothering to identify it; not something they were happy to admit.

‘The Malaysian government has called upon all the countries to the north-west as far as Turkmenistan and the Caspian Sea to check their primary radar records for unidentified contacts in their airspace in the seven hours after the 777 went missing.

‘Depending on the actual track the aircraft followed, if it had headed approximately north-west this could include some–if not all–of the following countries: Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, China, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan.

‘If the aircraft had gone that way, surely military primary radar in one of those countries–or several–would have picked up the signal from this unidentified aircraft, and the vigilant radar operator would have scrambled a fighter to intercept the intruder?

‘Wouldn’t s/he? Or maybe not. Maybe these states’ air defences, like Malaysia’s, are not what they are cracked up to be. And maybe they wouldn’t want the rest of the world to know that.’

For the critical first three days the search was focused on the South China Sea. So when the Malaysian military reported the sighting over the Strait of Malacca, it became clear that it was a wrong search area.

Today Malaysian authorities said they were ceding control to other countries in the hunt for the airliner as they announced the search area now consists of 14 huge sections covering an area the size of Australia.

Witnesses in the Maldives reported seeing what they described as a ‘low-flying jumbo jet’ around 6.15am.

Maldivian news website Haveeru said the residents on the remote Maldives island of Kuda Huvadhoo in Dhaal Atoll said they saw a white aircraft, with red stripes across it like the planes operated by Malaysia Airlines.

It would mean that MH370 continued for a further 2,000 miles flying westwards.

Air Vice Marshal Montol Suchookorn of the Royal Thai Air Force said an unidentified aircraft was detected at 1.28am, eight minutes after MH370’S transponder stopped communicating.

He said the plane was following a twisting path, turning towards Butterworth, a Malaysian city along the Strait of Malacca. The radar signal was infrequent and did not include any data such as the flight number.

He said he didn’t know exactly when Thai radar last detected the plane. Malaysian officials have said Flight 370 was last detected by their own military radar at 2:14 a.m. heading toward the strait.

When asked why it took so long to release the information, Montol said, ‘Because we did not pay any attention to it.

‘The Royal Thai Air Force only looks after any threats against our country, so anything that did not look like a threat to us, we simply look at it without taking actions.’ – dailymail.co.uk