I'm starting to think the plane didn't make it that far.

Something catastrophic happened on board and it crashed. Simple as that. There was not time for a Mayday. (explosion or raging fire)
I really think after what's happened it could be very close to were it took off.

The people looking for this plane are chasing ghosts. Nothing yet has convinced me otherwise.

EDIT: It may not even be in the ocean.

a lot more highly trained people have done a lot dumber things when presented with crisis situations.

how many hunters get lost in there own woods every fall in broad daylight? :rolleyes:

In the absence of any clear evidence, we will each believe whatever we choose to believe based on our own backgrounds and perspectives. Until then, we don't really know. :)

This sudden catastrophe doesn't line up with a course change being programmed 12 minutes before last radio communication, which was calm and didn't indicate any issue.

i keep waiting for this element of the timeline to be "corrected'. they've been wrong on so many other things. change that one detail and everything else falls into place.

^ that's fair.

I still don't understand how or why no cell phone communications were made from the doomed aircraft. After so many hours, you'd think one of the passengers would have made an attempt to call, and there was time when the airplane flew over land, if the satellite data is accurate.

Then again, at 30,000 feet, would cell phones be out of range? If not, then the only explanation that makes sense is that the passengers were incapacitated, which would point to the theory that there a deliberate action to cause harm for all of the passengers and crew.

-Z-man.

MY understanding is that cell phones only work if base stations are reasonably close. At 30,000 feet that may be a stretch even over land with a high density of base stations. Over open ocean, no chance. Different story with satellite phones, but who carries one of those?

Cell towers are pointed down for ground propogation, only aircell points there towers up and those are proprietary service for their own products. You can be directly over a cell tower at 30 000 feet and you are unlikely to be able to make a call, even if you do detect the network. Over open ocean those phones would not have worked standing on the deck of a ship, much less so at 30k and 500 Knots.

Carriers that allow cell use on board aircraft in cruise are using repeater systems mounted in the cabin roof. With that system, all the phones will broadcast at their weakest setting as the "tower" is in proximity to the phone. At that level the phones are safe for use on an aircraft. Without the repeater, every phone looking for a signal will transmit at the full power setting, not a big deal for an individual phone or two, but a big deal if there are 200 of them.

Let's assume all the gauges went dark. They still have a compass right in front of them. Hard to miss that. It's the old-fashioned, basic kind, that works no matter what. Power, no power, doesn't matter. I'll bet you $100 that there's a flashlight in the cockpit, too.

As for the major malfunction and control issues, either the pilots or the autopilot flew that plane for 7 or 8 hours, so things couldn't have been too bad.

Then there's all the other stuff that occured before the left turn.

JR

They flew it ... into ... SPACE !!

http://www.omenaheights.com/starflight_reentry.JPG

It was shot down.
Who did it? I don't know.

I'm a pilot and of course we are all talking about this incident in our industry and not one single person I know thinks it was a mechanical issue.

Could it be a catatrophic event that destroyed all communications instantly but kept the plane flying on auto pilot?

Highly unlikely... Anything that would knock out all communications instantly would also disable the auto pilot IMO. Interesting theory though.

Definitely if they had AT&T. I couldn't make a call from inside my office when I had AT&T and I could see the cell tower from my window.

Update:

Ocean shield made two more ping receptions in the same area as before, bringing ping contacts to four. Head of Australian search efforts is highly optimistic they will find the remains of the aircraft in the not too distant future.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: 2 new signals in search area buoy hope
By Ed Payne and Greg Botelho, CNN
updated 3:22 AM EDT, Wed April 9, 2014

(CNN) -- In a sea of uncertainty, two bits of good news emerged Wednesday.

Searchers picked up fresh signals that officials hope are locator beacons from the data recorders of the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

The Australian ship Ocean Shield had first picked up the underwater pulses Saturday. But then, for the next three days, nothing.
Could the pings be from MH370?

On Tuesday, the ship once again reacquired the signals. That's four signals in the same broad area: two on Saturday; two on Tuesday. All of the signals are within 17 miles of one another.

"I believe we are searching in the right area, but we need to visually identify wreckage before we can confirm with certainty that this is the final resting place of MH370," said Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who's coordinating the Australian operation.

The second piece of good news? Authorities analyzed the signals picked up Saturday and determined they weren't natural occurrences, but likely came from specific electronic equipment. Some marine life make similar sounds.

"They believe the signals to be consistent with the specification and description of a flight data recorder," Houston said. "I'm now optimistic. We'll find the aircraft or what's left of the aircraft in the not too distant future."

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: 2 new signals in search area buoy hope - CNN.com

I wonder whether they can plot various lines of position from these signals, and whether they can intersect them to locate the positions of the sources of the signals. There may be transmissions from both flight data recorders.

Houston's statement (in red above) seems to suggest that they've narrowed down the position.