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" but there is still a massive risk that one of these countries might notice the plane on military or other radar"

And radar coverage is much bigger in the northern arc.

China/Russia/India/Pakistan, etc

Yep, and as someone else mentioned, flying right over one of the more heavily militarized areas of the planet (Kashmir). Also, why would Russia choose to hijack a plane full of Chinese citizens for this? The last thing they want right now is to compromise their relationship with China. It just doesn't make any sense.

Well, at that time the worlds media attention was on the Ukraine conflict, involving Russia. What better way to get media attention away from your plans than to create a mystery about which most of the western world happily cares much more than about watching eversame news about war and invasion.

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