I'd rate the ability of the US Gov't to successfully keep something like that a secret to be roughly zero, plus or minus zero.

> I'd rate the ability of the US Gov't to successfully keep something like that a secret to be roughly zero, plus or minus zero.

You'd be very wrong. There are hundreds (thousands? tens of thousands?) classified missions going on all the time involving large amount of people. And aside for the exceedingly rare whistleblower, all of them are kept secret for decades or more until they get declassified (sometimes never).

(Not trying to give any credibility to the previous comment, just commenting on how effectively governments keep classified secrets.)

As I said, 'like that.' It is difficult to imagine a reasonable comparison between all of the mundane secret missions going on every day, and shooting down an airliner. This is on the level of 9/11 conspiracies. It's just not possible for something that huge to stay secret for long.

> There are hundreds (thousands? tens of thousands?) classified missions going on all the time involving large amount of people.

Not many of them involve murdering an entire planeload of civilians.

> Not many of them involve murdering an entire planeload of civilians.

You of course don't know that, not having access to compartmentalized top secret material.

If you did, you couldn't post here (or anywhere) about it.

You can be reasonably confident that the US does not regularly disappear entire airplanes filled with foreign nationals. As evidenced by MH 370, it's something that everybody notices.

The US has vast intelligence and military resources, but resources can't create operational miracles. Disappearing a civilian airplane and keeping it disappeared would be such a miracle.

That scenario seems wildly improbable. First, the existence of the large U.S. airbase at Diego Garcia isn't remotely secret. As for an accidental shoot-down of an airliner before any visual identification or confirmation, I suppose it could happen but it goes against every policy and procedure the U.S. is known to follow. If an unidentified aircraft approached an airbase, they would scramble an intercept for visual identification - especially in peace-time - in the middle of the Indian Ocean far from any active conflict zone.

In the insanely improbable event that the intercept accidentally shot down the unidentified aircraft before realizing it was a civilian airliner, then it would have been pilot error for not following rules of engagement or, possibly, a flight controller or flight commander error. There's zero reason for the U.S. government to turn an individual mistake into a huge incident by trying to cover it up. Also, there are many examples of the U.S. military making such mistakes and NOT trying to cover it up.

> Also, there are many examples of the U.S. military making such mistakes and NOT trying to cover it up.

Including shooting down an airliner. No coverup.

This one

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Eh, they did lie about it repeatedly (as to why and how bits like location and aircraft trajectory). But they did acknowledge it happened I guess is your point.

Also, there is nothing on Diego Garcia that could shoot down an airliner. There is Air Force base but it is all transports today with bombers in the past. There are no fighters based there and same was true in 2014. I couldn’t find any evidence of SAMs. The Air Force doesn’t believe in air defenses for bases outside of active war zones.

We had two carrier groups in the west pacific

Diego Garcia is in Indian Ocean, 2200 mi from Malaysia. The radar shows that MH370 went into the Indian Ocean not Pacific. If carrier was in the South China Sea, it would be pretty obvious that it was there and involved.

Carrier group is even less likely to shoot down airliner. In middle of ocean or crowded area like South China Sea, carrier group probably doesn't have its defenses on alert. It has fighters that can intercept and visually identify aircraft. In the middle of ocean, there is plenty of time to react. There isn't the hair trigger in middle of war zone that led to Iran Air Flight 655.

How far is the Indian Ocean from the west pacific?

What was the plane doing near Diego Garcia in the first place?

There would've been overwhelming chatter about a plane entering controlled airspace and not replying. The sheer size of cleanup needed would've required one of the MEUs to reroute and you'd have to silence thousands of Marines and Sailors from talking about it.