USMC I was simply agreeing that the troll has been fed too much. I just wanted to clarify that in that situation where aircraft were sent up to check, with a known flight path, and good daylight visibility it ultimately served little more than to know the location of the crash.

I reread the article on that yesterday and I believe it said they were flying for 4 hours and within about 20 minutes of losing contact were intercepted, but even then it was only because there was a squadron on a training flight nearby.

I'm not entirely sure the US would send birds up without a 7500 or a distress call immediately let alone Malaysia which has been stated in several posts to not have active squads sitting around waiting to be scrambled.