Apparently they were divorced for a little while, and it wasn't until the day before that she finally moved out.

Could it be a coincidence? Sure, it could.

If the satellite got multiple pings, then through the multiple circles even if they could not rule out the northern or southern corridor, they could probably produce two likely flight paths and from that 2 smaller search circles than those two huge semi-circles.

Since thats obvious and they haven't done it, I'm assuming the satellite only received one ping.

Yeah, it could be a coincidence, but I see how having your family leave and the politician you support being convicted by a corrupt government all at the same time might make the guy suicidal.

I'd like to believe in the "stole the plane and landed it somewhere" scenario because it's sexier, but that wouldn't be something you'd concoct on the spur of the moment and they sure don't seem to be turning up much in the way of ties to pirates, terrorists or any other type of extremist in either of the pilots' backgrounds. Unless they're keeping it quiet so they can try to catch up with the bad guys, of course.

I'm reluctantly and gradually coming around to your completely unsexy suicide theory.

The things that are most interesting to me are that he picked some small island airports that are all west of, and at (or perhaps beyond) his range on the flight. You'd think that he'd be more likely to pick small airports that are on his flight path, which are going to be more forested and hilly and stuff.

Now, perhaps he also flies some routes between Malaysia and Europe, and if that's the case then it's a non-story. But I'm not sure that the Maldives and Diego Garcia really fall along a Great Circle route to Europe. It's almost like he was practicing finding small isolated islands more than practicing landings.

The short runway thing is of interest too, but that's explainable if he's just testing his skills.

The Maldives are particularly interesting because if you're trying to avoid Indian radar and you're headed to Pakistan or Somalia, you're going over the Maldives, more or less.

Oh, I didn't know that. That seems kind of important. I could see the Silent Suicide option as more likely now.

Looks like they only really started searching west of australia yesterday. By Thursday they expect 6 ships from Australia and the US to be in the area.

This is the search area, its obviously smaller than that huge southern semi-circle, but I guess they think this small chunk (which is still huge) is most likely. Right now its only a surface search, they aren't bringing out the sonar.

edit: correction, 6 planes. they'll be operating in and out of Perth. Australia has 4 search planes, we sent down a propeller-driven search plane that was nearby, and our most advanced search plane is flying down Thursday.

http://images.smh.com.au/2014/03/18/...ap-620x349.jpg

The unsexy suicide option seems to be most plausible.

So the captain incapacitated the first officer, climbed the plane to 45,000 to knock out the passengers and then just coasted off into the proverbial sunset until the fuel ran out?

Maybe he'd always been curious about how high he could take it, and this is really the only opportunity to do that.

Suicide or terrorist, it would take a pretty evil person to do this. There are plenty of ways to off yourself and make it look accidental without murdering nearly 250 innocent people.

Or the co-pilot and pilot conspired together.

It just seems like a lot of things could go wrong for such a suicide plan to work..

If it turns out to be a suicide, let's practice some prevention going forward.

If you're an attractive woman boarding a flight, always flirt with the male pilot and copilot. Give them something to live for, at least for another 24 hours.

If you're a guy, don't flirt with any flight crew, because you're probably unattractive and will just come off as creepy. Instead, tell them how cool a job they have.

Couldn't agree more, and I am open to other theories. A slow moving 7 hour fire does not seem likely.

LMAO

If it's a suicide, then what were his goals (other than killing himself)?

If he wanted to send a message to his ex-wife and the government, then you'd think he'd communicate and then do a nose dive. Plus, that's easier to do without losing your nerve.

If he wanted to do a silent suicide and leave insurance money to his kids, then it doesn't seem like taking the plane off course and disappearing would do that. It seems like you'd manufacture an emergency and bring the plane down after conking the other pilot in the head.

Why would you take seven hours to kill yourself when it's going to become apparent that it's a suicide? I don't get it.