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MH370: Report of Jet flying over Maldives Island Kudahuvadhoo

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They are only detectable by sonar within a 25 mile radius (maybe even less), so it's still necessary to find the crash location first. No GPS as far I know.
What about Tsunami buoys or listening devices? Thats not uncommon in that region of the world. If a plane that size were to crash down in the ocean is it plausible that a listening device or buoy could've picked it up. I'm sure it would've been a big event if it was intact when it hit the ocean.

Thanks for your response jaydeehess, I don't think it would be wrong to assume that in the event a plane crashes down in the ocean that nations, the US in particular would offer one of their submarines or navy vessels to canvass the area if needed, especially if they have a 25 mile range like Peter stated.
 
Yeah, something like that.

An underwater locator beacon (ULB) or underwater acoustic beacon is a device fitted to aviation flight recorders such as the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR). ULBs are also sometimes required to be attached directly to an aircraft fuselage. When triggered by water immersion, the ULB emits an ultrasonic pulse of 37.5 kHz at an interval of once per second.[citation needed]
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Not much range though.
A 37.5kHz (160.5dB re 1μPa) pinger can be detectable 1-2km from the surface in normal conditions and 4-5km in good conditions. A 37.5kHz (180dB re 1μPa) transponder pinger can be detected 4-5km n normal conditions and 6-7km in good conditions. Transponder 10kHz (180dB re 1μPa) range is 7-9km in normal condition and 17-22km in good conditions. [3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_locator_beacon
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Reported sighting In the Maldives Islands: Around 6:15 am local time on 8 March, the day MH370 vanished, residents of Kuda Huvadhoo, population 3500, in Dhall Atoll in the Maldives spotted a "low-flying jumbo jet" with white and red stripes across it as on Malaysian Airliners, the report said. The residents heard incredibly loud noise which made them come out of their houses to look for the source of the sound. The residents said the plane was flying so low that they could even see its doors.
It is unclear why the investigators have not explained why they ruled out eyewitness accounts so quickly. They stated that the Republic of the Maldives National Defence Force has told them that they had not seen anything on their radar. ". I have to question why so much credibility has been given to this statement after other military radars in a number of highly developed countries who don’t really get along with each other very well, never noticed the transponder failure or the change in course by the aircraft until well after the occurrence. . I quote an official statement, “no trace of the MH370 Airline has been found from the data scrutinized thus far from radars stationed at the airports in the Maldives”. It's hard to argue with the investigators when they are not giving you any concrete information.
 
How is it possible for a satellite to tell for sure that it was flight MH370 ?
Isn't it possible to track the flight from beginning to end by merging data from all satellites ?
Who owns the satellite that supposedly detected this signal ?
 
Here's the full article in The Australian:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...-help-find-mh370/story-e6frg95x-1227290748703
relevant except:

The technology and logistics matter little, however, to the villagers of Kuda Huvadhoo, the capital of an atoll lacking radar in a country with outdated and severely limited defence and air traffic equipment. Several people we spoke to believe they saw MH370 about 6.30am (9.30am in Malaysia) that day.

Zuhuriyya Ali, 49, who watched it from her home’s courtyard, still “feels strange when thinking about the people on it”. “I consider it a lot,’’ she says. “I am concerned there is a connection to the Malaysia plane.”

Ahmed Shiyaam, 34, an IT manager at the local medical clinic who was riding with his daughter, Uyoon, 6, along one of the island’s sandy paths that morning, stopped and looked up on March 8 last year — they had never seen such a large plane fly so low.

“I’m very sure of what I saw on a very clear and bright day, and what I saw was not normal — the plane was very big, and low. I did not know until later that other people saw it too. I don’t know if it’s the Malaysia plane.”

Ahmed Ibrahim, 40, who saw it from his garden, also described it to us in confident detail.

“This was not a normal sight — the plane was different,’’ he says. “It was very big, very noisy, flying low. Later that afternoon on the beach I was told the news about the missing plane. I think this is the same flight.”

Back on the exact spot where he was standing on March 8 last year when he saw the aircraft, Abdu Rasheed Ibrahim says: “First, I saw the plane flying towards me over water. When it was over my head I saw it starting to turn away. At first glance, I did not know it was a missing plane. I didn’t know that a plane was missing. I went straight home and told my wife about it. I told my family, ‘I saw this strange plane’. This is the biggest plane I have ever seen from this island. My family says, ‘It might be the Malaysian plane’. I have seen pictures of the missing plane — I believe that I saw that plane. At the time it was lost, I strongly felt those people who were searching should come here.”

The Weekend Australian spent three days interviewing locals, all of whom described the incident in a similar way. Six of the key witnesses we spoke to were interviewed last year by police at the direction of authorities in Male, and each signed statements of their versions. A senior source familiar with the police probe confirmed the witness accounts were regarded as truthful and consistent. The office of the new President in Male declined to comment; his immediate predecessor is languishing in a nearby prison.

“These people were not seeking attention and they did not go to the police about it, the police went to them after hearing about this,’’ the source says. “They are not dishonest and they have no motive to lie. They all told the police it was big, low and noisy. If it was not the missing plane, then which plane was it? We do not see planes close and low to Kuda Huvadhoo. Nobody knows what has really happened.”
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One thing that does not tally with this is the lack of any wreckage or debris.

One thing they should have done is get the people to point to where in the sky the plane was, and where it went. That would have been a better test of consistency than "a big plane like the one that was missing flew over, then there was a loud sound".
 
From the article in the Mirror:
Local fisherman Abdu Rasheed Ibrahim, 47, told The Australian : "I watched this very large plane bank slightly and I saw its colours — the red and blue lines — below the windows, then I heard the loud noise.

Not sure if this noise has anything to do with an impact or just the noise of a low flying plane.

But there's still the acousic signal: Curtin researchers in search for acoustic evidence of MH370.

The signal, which was picked up by underwater sound recorders off Rottnest Island just after 1:30 am UTC on the 8th March, could have resulted from Flight MH370 crashing into the Indian Ocean but could also have originated from a natural event, such as a small earth tremor.

The direction of the acoustic signal is interesting though. From Wikipedia MH370 article

 
Have to pay a visit here for a long time since googling brought me here :).

Has anyone seen any sort of official explanation what flew over Maldives if it wasn't MH370? I find it quite odd that nobody has given an answer to that.

One obvious alternative is that there was no plane, it was just a lie/hoax by several people. But nothing I have seen gives any indication to that direction. It seems they have been officially deemed credible.

We have heard the sighting was very much out of ordinary, planes normally don't fly there and it was large and flying very low. The descriptions also indicate it looked like a normal passenger plane (rather than e.g. military). So has anyone actually asked airlines that could have possibly operated there that did any of yours fly out of their ordinary courses, extra low? And really, if something like that was there, wouldn't it seem likely that whoever flew it would have already told the public that it was us?

At the moment the Maldives sighting seems to be a mystery on its own already.
 
Has anyone seen any sort of official explanation what flew over Maldives if it wasn't MH370? I find it quite odd that nobody has given an answer to that.
Just doing a background look up on air traffic around the Maldives on Flightradar24
A this very moment over and around the islands are..
Etihad a-330 Male - Abu Dhabi
Cathay Pacific A330 Hong Kong - Male
Sir-Lankan A330 Columbo - Male
Qatar A320 Male - Doha
and a number of smaller planes on internal routes.
Some of the pilots here will correct me if I'm wrong, but I also believe that some flights between South Asia and East and Central Africa also pass near the Islands

Now The Maldives are a large chain of islands stretching some 700 km from North to South and whilst is true the Maldives military has no large aircraft of its own it does work closely in co-operation with the Indian Airforce and large Indian transport aircraft including 737s, C-17s and Il-76s have all flown in and out of the islands at various times.

Another possibility is it was a research aircraft. Due to its geographical location, The Maldives is a well used research base for various national and international oceanographic projects, and these also at times operate large aircraft. https://www.eol.ucar.edu/content/facility-locations

So if these islanders did see a large aircraft there is no proof it was MH-370, as Mick pointed out if MH-370 had crashed near the islands the wreckage would have turned up soon after. So whilst the slim possibility of the islanders seeing MH-370 cannot be completely ruled out. (Remember they say themselves they are un-used to large aircraft, so therefore can't really be expected be able to tell an airliner, from a military transport from a research plane), there are other, in my mind more likely suspects as to what the plane, if it existed, could have been.
 
The island in question seems to be northwest from the closest airport, Thimarafushi. Looks like there's not much traffic around that spot. I tried the playback functionality in Flightradar24 for a couple of days and saw only a couple of small seaplanes around that location.

From The Australian article:
An interesting event on Kuda Huvadhoo is a small twin-prop sea plane swooping nearby. An unusual event is seeing the contrails of a large jet at high altitude — they seldom cross the southern atoll. A remarkable event, something the locals relate to us with the intensity of people who fear they are doubted, is watching a large passenger jet, like a Boeing 777, flying low about the time MH370 would have been close to running out of fuel.
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Some descriptions from different witnesses of that airliner from the same article:
I watched this very large plane bank slightly and I saw its colours — the red and blue lines — below the windows, then I heard the loud noise ... It was unusual, very unusual. It was big and it was flying low.
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he also described the distinctive blue and red striping ... I heard the loud noise of it after it went over
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I’m very sure of what I saw on a very clear and bright day, and what I saw was not normal — the plane was very big, and low.
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It states that:
They all told the police it was big, low and noisy. If it was not the missing plane, then which plane was it? We do not see planes close and low to Kuda Huvadhoo. Nobody knows what has really happened.”
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Based on all that, it looks evident that seeing something like that would be a really unusual event. So in my opinion the alternatives are:
1) They are all lying and there was nothing
2) It was MH370
3) It was some other plane BUT it was still unusual there and clearly flew low and loud, so one would expect whoever flew it would have already told they were there
 
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"I heard the loud noise of it after it went over" this either indicates it was very high (like normal cruising altitude), or that it was low and impacted shortly after.

The most likely thing to me seems like it was high up, and simply a rare nearby overflight (quite possibly miles away). Likely the people whose plane it was are either not aware of the reports, or they don't think it was important, or they don't think it was their plane (it being several miles away and high up), or they just never connected the two things.

Chemtrail people are always going on about how incredibly low planes are when they are over six miles up in the air, and how they fly "directly overhead" when they are several miles away.

An A380 looks pretty large when it flies close to you, even at cruising altitude, and makes a relatively loud sound (after it has passed). Without some actual frame of reference we don't know what "big, low, noisy" means.
 
This one however indicates that it would have been low enough to actually see the windows and colors:

I saw its colours — the red and blue lines — below the windows
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I don't remember seeing anything like that from normal cruising altitudes. And there was at least two people who claimed to have seen red and blue stripes, so doesn't sound like it would be just one person's imagination either.
 
This one however indicates that it would have been low enough to actually see the windows and colors:

I saw its colours — the red and blue lines — below the windows
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I don't remember seeing anything like that from normal cruising altitudes. And there was at least two people who claimed to have seen red and blue stripes, so doesn't sound like it would be just one person's imagination either.

Then why could they not hear it until it passed?
 
One other interesting piece from the same article:

There were other reasons the people of Kuda Huvadhoo were not taken seriously. The Maldives National Defence Force, responsible for guarding the security and sovereignty of the low-lying country, issued a statement in March last year ruling out any such aircraft movement over its air space. The locals were surprised and felt humiliated. Several of those we spoke to in Kuda Huvadhoo were scornful, accusing their defence chiefs of seeking to save face and not wanting to admit to their people or the world that the limitations of Maldives radar and other equipment could not detect such flights.
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So it seems officially there was no plane. There couldn't be as the radar didn't see them... For some reason I don't really give much credibility to any radar related statement in this case anymore...

But at least officially that seems to rule out any normal and known flights above that area back then.
 
Then why could they not hear it until it passed?

I don't think it was actually claimed they didn't hear it at all before. I would expect them to hear some sound as it was coming closer and much louder as it passes, as it goes with sound waves, and maybe that's the reason they only emphasize the much louder sound afterwards.
 
There's really nothing here but speculation based on second hand accounts.

I wouldn't really call it that. There are official filed reports (at least 6) from multiple persons (told to be credible) and a reporter who interviewed multiple first hand witnesses and at least hopefully tells it more or less word from word what they said. There's also clear and consistent information that whatever flew there would be very much out of ordinary. And official statement that there was no plane (based on radar).

At least something doesn't add up. What annoys me the most is that there seems to be so few questions the witnesses were asked, or at least they didn't end up in the article. Like what sort of sounds they actually heard, did it stop abruptly, could they see how many engines it had, estimate how many windows, did it leave chem... sorry contrails ;) etc. You know stuff that could at least eliminate some possibilities.

To me the somewhat revised options remain:
1) They are all lying and there was nothing
2) It was MH370
3) It was some other very unusual flyover

Officially 2 and 3 couldn't have happened, so the official choice seems to be 1 (despite also official statements of the credibility of the witnesses). In any case it seems either the witnesses lied or the officials lied (at least about their radar capabilities). Option 3 would be quite a coincidence as something so extraordinary would have such a timing and also officially denied. Option 1 is probably the easiest explanation then, although motive is unclear.
 
I find it surprising that none of these people took a photo of this very rare event. Mobile phones with cameras are pretty ubiquitous these days, and by Maldivian standards this is a well-populated island (3,500+ people and the capital of an administrative district).
 
Or maybe a big plane flew overhead, as they occasionally do, someone heard about MH370, speculated, and the story grew in the telling?

Consider, there's hundreds of towns in the Maldives. On any given day a A380 will fly over one of them. So it's not really unusual, except to the people living there. i.e. no high odds are required for this to happen - it's a given.
 
I find it surprising that none of these people took a photo of this very rare event. Mobile phones with cameras are pretty ubiquitous these days, and by Maldivian standards this is a well-populated island (3,500+ people and the capital of an administrative district).

That same article describes how wealthy tourists sometimes come to "briefly look at the modest lives here" and "for most of the time, the area is left alone. The villagers’ days revolve around fundamental needs — their food (the fish and occasional lobster pulled from the turquoise waters), Islamic prayer five times a day, family, work and friends".

And Maldives as a whole was graduated to developing country status from earlier least developed country just in 2011:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_developed_country

So it doesn't sound like a place where everyone would have a decent quality camera phone in their pocket.
 
Or maybe a big plane flew overhead, as they occasionally do, someone heard about MH370, speculated, and the story grew in the telling?

That would still leave them liars:
Abdu spoke to other villagers about the strange, large aircraft. Some saw it. Others only heard it. They say they were talking about it hours before they knew MH370 had gone missing.
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Consider, there's hundreds of towns in the Maldives. On any given day a A380 will fly over one of them. So it's not really unusual, except to the people living there. i.e. no high odds are required for this to happen - it's a given.

Planes still usually follow certain routes and this place apparently isn't close to most of them. And more than that, in this case when it reportedly happened, it was officially denied it happened. It's more than odds. Something does not add up.
 
That same article describes how wealthy tourists sometimes come to "briefly look at the modest lives here" and "for most of the time, the area is left alone. The villagers’ days revolve around fundamental needs — their food (the fish and occasional lobster pulled from the turquoise waters), Islamic prayer five times a day, family, work and friends".

And Maldives as a whole was graduated to developing country status from earlier least developed country just in 2011:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_developed_country

So it doesn't sound like a place where everyone would have a decent quality camera phone in their pocket.

The Maldives is pretty near the top of the global list of mobile phone subscriptions per capita:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator...pi_data_value+wbapi_data_value-last&sort=desc

Even back circa 2006 it had around 85% penetration of mobile phones: report published in January 2008 is at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_x6_Cm9Ao7wC&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=maldives+highest+mobile+phone+use&source=bl&ots=eGjzbUG7ho&sig=EstiYtgvjDHy_UQxAGnsPSycSX4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dgEwVc_3Bs3maIzcgagD&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=maldives highest mobile phone use&f=false
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Not surprising considering it is a very scattered country, and landlines were in short supply.


When I first read these reports I was picturing some remote island with a handful of fishermen or something. But Kuda Huvadhoo is not a backward place. It is the regional administrative capital:

upload_2015-4-16_19-41-0.png

upload_2015-4-16_19-44-30.png

upload_2015-4-16_19-45-18.png

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I would guess that the vast majority of people on the island have a mobile phone. And the vast majority of mobile phones these days have cameras.
 
When I first read these reports I was picturing some remote island with a handful of fishermen or something. But Kuda Huvadhoo is not a backward place. It is the regional administrative capital.

In that case the reporter has some explaining to do as he certainly seems to describe it as a remote island with villagers living simple lives.

First sentence in that article: "The tiny Indian Ocean island of Kuda Huvadhoo is the sleepy fishing community that the world forgot"
 
In that case the reporter has some explaining to do as he certainly seems to describe it as a remote island with villagers living simple lives.
Take it up with him. That's hardly the topic here.

Islanders saw a plane, it was investigated, it was determined it was not MH370. That's all there is to it.
 
In that case the reporter has some explaining to do as he certainly seems to describe it as a remote island with villagers living simple lives.

First sentence in that article: "The tiny Indian Ocean island of Kuda Huvadhoo is the sleepy fishing community that the world forgot"
To a reporter from Sydney it probably is sleepy. But these aren't Robinson Crusoes living on a desert island. A population of 3,500 puts it just outside the top 10 largest settlements in the Maldives: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Largest_cities_of_the_Maldives
 
Islanders saw a plane, it was investigated, it was determined it was not MH370. That's all there is to it.

I somewhat disagree here. There is no definite determination of some kind at least in the published articles and interviews. The reasoning goes more like this: the satellite pings are determined to be leading therefore this story cannot be. Plus the Maldivian militairy radar denies having seen it although one cannot be sure how to qualify that as evidence. Radar tracking is as good as its maintainers, the people manning it. Therefore I'd say it's still extremely unlikely it was indeed MH370 on the Maldives without any added evidence based on radar, ping Doppler calculations or washed up identified items.

Eyewitness accounts always remain rather anecdotal. Even memory might trick them, like putting more weight on the earlier flyover after hearing the news about the crash. It's murky territory but it wouldn't be the first time that current visual shocking images or video colors the memories of a whole group of people. Since we share a lot of wiring, similar reports coming from different people not always adds to the weight.

Still I'd wish there would be better ways to exclude this as possibility. As destination this area makes more sense to me than the suggested curve towards nowhere.
 
Still I'd wish there would be better ways to exclude this as possibility. As destination this area makes more sense to me than the suggested curve towards nowhere.

Unless that was the intent of the pilot.

But this is all based on supposition. Sure it might have been mh370, or mh370 might just about anywhere. But it's just not very good evidence.
 
But the combination of multiple witnesses and the acoustic signal makes it AFAIK the only viable alternative to calculations coming out of "innovative" analysis of the Inmarsat ping data. And the last available military radar data only indicates a west bound destination. Any 180 degrees turn around is only suggested by first starting at a conclusion that the Inmarsat analysis is correct. Personally I find that weak as a strong case needs to have some corroborating evidence.

 
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That would still leave them liars

While it might have helped had there been more thorough questioning of alleged witnesses,
at the end of the day, this kind of "evidence" still must be taken with many grains of salt.

Terms like "liars" usually aren't very helpful, because they are inflammatory and often lead to
false dichotomy. Years ago I did work around numerous criminal cases (usually capital) and
soon learned not to put much stock in eyewitness testimony. Yes, sometimes people will outright lie,
but very often they'll just get things wrong because they didn't perceive the event accurately in the first place,
mis-remember the details, mistakenly fill-in gaps with things they've heard from others,
bend the info gently to fit what they think others want to say, or for more attention...and so on.

In short, by itself, most witness testimony isn't something I generally put much stock in.
Especially if it appears to be at odds with what is known...
 
But the combination of multiple witnesses and the acoustic signal makes it AFAIK the only viable alternative to calculations coming out of "innovative" analysis of the Inmarsat ping data. And the last available military radar data only indicates a west bound destination. Any 180 degrees turn around is only suggested by first starting at a conclusion that the Inmarsat analysis is correct. Personally I find that weak as a strong case needs to have some corroborating evidence.

Exactly. It is surprising how certain they seem to be on calculations that have been done for the first time and haven't been proven in practice. Especially considering even Inmarsat has acknowledged also the possibility of that data being spoofed (although they think it's very unlikely):

http://www.runwaygirlnetwork.com/20...-data-correct-assuming-it-hasnt-been-spoofed/
“We are very confident that this data is correct assuming that there is no other way this data has been spoofed in any way”, said Inmarsat VP Aviation David Coiley at a recent APEX Technology Committee meeting in California. He stressed that Inmarsat strongly believes that spoofing did not occur.
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And apparently that might not be quite as hard as is commonly believed:
http://www.inquisitr.com/1892607/malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370-fake-satellite-data/
Gerry Soejatman, an aviation expert based in Jakarta, Indonesia, wrote on Sunday that while he remains skeptical of Wise’s idea that Flight MH370 was diverted to the Russian airfield, gaining access to the satellite data system would be much easier than anyone, including Wise, has yet to realize. In fact, it would have been as easy as opening an overhead compartment, or the ceiling panels above one.
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Just today the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia made it quite clear that other options are not even considered just because of those calculations:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/bus...ght-mh370-debris/story-e6frg95x-1227306822742
The experts are so confident that we’re searching in the right place that they don’t countenance that there’s any other possibilities really
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The expert panels all around the world are so convinced that the satellite connections and seventh arc is where it is, they’re talking about basically zero per cent options for anything else
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As for the Maldives, I don't think it has really been investigated properly. They just don't do it because they don't consider any other options. If it was investigated, we really should already know what plane that was. It can't be so hard to find out whose large plane was flying where they normally don't at an altitude they normally don't. That is assuming the whole thing isn't just a hoax.

As for the debris from the article mentioned above:

Asked about the lack of debris from MH370 in the search area, Mr Truss said searchers in the Air France case had not found any surface debris 10 days after the crash, while the search near the seventh arc only started on the 11th day.

“So in reality, from the Air France experience, it would have all sunk to the bottom by the time we started the search,’’ he said.
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While it might have helped had there been more thorough questioning of alleged witnesses,
at the end of the day, this kind of "evidence" still must be taken with many grains of salt.

Terms like "liars" usually aren't very helpful, because they are inflammatory and often lead to
false dichotomy. Years ago I did work around numerous criminal cases (usually capital) and
soon learned not to put much stock in eyewitness testimony. Yes, sometimes people will outright lie,
but very often they'll just get things wrong because they didn't perceive the event accurately in the first place,
mis-remember the details, mistakenly fill-in gaps with things they've heard from others,
bend the info gently to fit what they think others want to say, or for more attention...and so on.

In short, by itself, most witness testimony isn't something I generally put much stock in.
Especially if it appears to be at odds with what is known...
What's more, the reporter doesn't seem to be a very accurate source here - reporters often embellish their stories to make them more dramatic/interesting/engaging and we've already seen this bloke do that in his description of the island.

I'm not suggesting that the reporter was out and out lying, just that if a small regional administrative centre can be a 'sleepy fishing community the world forgot', then a mid-sized aircraft can be an 'A380', a couple of eyewitnesses who vaguely noticed it can be 'the entire island was talking about it for hours afterward', and so on.
 
What's more, the reporter doesn't seem to be a very accurate source here - reporters often embellish their stories to make them more dramatic/interesting/engaging and we've already seen this bloke do that in his description of the island.

I'm not suggesting that the reporter was out and out lying, just that if a small regional administrative centre can be a 'sleepy fishing community the world forgot', then a mid-sized aircraft can be an 'A380', a couple of eyewitnesses who vaguely noticed it can be 'the entire island was talking about it for hours afterward', and so on.

Speaking of accuracy, that population figure of 3,580 from Wikipedia might not paint too accurate picture either. Here's another source: http://planning.gov.mv/DIRAM/DIRAM_2/DHIRAM2_SocioEcon_Kudahuvadhoo_FinalDraftV1.pdf

Looks to be an official report from 2009. Kudahuvadhoo population census figures:
year 2000 total: 1232
year 2006 total: 1639

Which sound a bit more like a sleeping fishing village. The population growth is caused by tsunami relocations from a couple of other islands. That likely means significant construction projects and foreign workers and at least temporarily a bit less sleeping island.

A couple of other quotes:

"The Census 2006 reports the number of households in Kudahuvadhoo as 272. In 2008, the island office reported that there were 260 plots with buildings and 538 plots under construction. This figure reflects the population relocation activities following the tsunami of 2004. Some of the existing buildings are vacant."

"The main economic activity in terms of estimated income for employees is fishing. It is followed by employment in civil service, manufacturing and construction"

"According to Census 2006, the total number of economically active population is 721. Amongst these, 548 are employed and 137 are unemployed"

"The household surveys undertaken during the study showed that average income for households was around Rf6000 per month."

Google tells that Rf6000 is around $392 per month per household. Household average size is said to be 6.0. So that's $65 per person per month. So it seems likely not all of them have a good quality camera phone ready in their pocket...
 
Google tells that Rf6000 is around $392 per month per household. Household average size is said to be 6.0. So that's $65 per person per month. So it seems likely not all of them have a good quality camera phone ready in their pocket...
That's all quite informative. Bear in mind however the Balassa-Samuelson effect on purchasing power parity - $65 in a low-income country buys considerably more than does $65 in its high-income counterparts. In the case of the Maldives, Wikipedia puts the nominal GDP per capita at $5900 and the PPP-adjusted GDP per capita at $8700 (I'm on a mobile and therefore cannot post the link, sorry about that), so there's a rather significant difference there (and this difference may be even more pronounced outside of the major urban centres).

Also, the 'underground' (ie unofficial/unreported) economy tends to be quite significant in low-income countries, so the figure of $65 a month may be a considerable underestimate.

Edit - An estimate I found on Knoema.com puts the Maldives' underground economy at ~28% of GDP in 2007, though the trend was sharply downward. The shadow economy may be more significant in the more remote areas however, like this island.

Again, sorry about the absence of links.
 
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