What surprises me the most: In today's world, doesn't someone have access to global, real-time satellite data that goes down to 1-3m resolution? I thought we already accepted this as fact. Wouldn't such data provide visuals?
They probably do, but what is the coverage like? They aren't streaming and storing every square meter of the earth all at once, such that they can just roll back several days and start poking around, meter by meter, minute by minute. Real time high resolution satellite streams are undoubtedly something that need to be scheduled in advanced for particular times and places.
surely so, but in the odd case that even one single image might have a plane on it, on the path the OP currently discusses here, might be enough to confirm further travel. the full step-by-step transition of the plan wouldn't even be necessary. just one shot with that plane. from somewhere.
Global? Likely. Realtime? We're not quite that far into the future. Just try and estimate the bandwidth for the biggest security camera of all times: at 1-3 meters resolution per pixel, worldwide, that's a lot of pixels (about 510 072 000 000 000 per frame, give or take - that comes out at about half an exabyte per frame, if I'm not mistaken). Take ten of these, and you've generated as much data as the whole Internet does in a day. Oh, and you also need to store it somewhere, but this is a minor issue (in comparison to the above).
You have to consider whether or not someone with access to that data would want to reveal it exists. If the US says they located the plane in the ocean, in a location that no one expected, everyone will be wondering how they came to that conclusion. You can't say it was a lucky guess.
