Now I'm reading that there is radar data that seems to show the plane was turning back, although no one is elaborating on whether the plane finished executing the turn. In any case, it seems highly irregular for a commercial flight to do that without any radio contact.

If the engines are still running the search footprint has to encompass the fuel range. If the engines aren't running the range may still be 50+ miles.

As for pilot radio contact: remember that Air France flight 447 crashed without the pilots ever making a radio call despite plenty of time & ability to do so.

One problem here is that nobody knows who has jurisdiction until the plane is found. So nobody is releasing information on things like autonomous radio calls by the maintenance system. Once there's someone in charge evidence will be collected & disseminated in a more orderly manner.

I'm not ready to make too much of the stolen passport issue yet. How common it is in that part of the world? Traveling on false paperwork offends TSA sensibilities but that may have no bearing on "local" flights in that part of the world, especially if minorities are able to upgrade their treatment by carrying a first-world passport.

Very recent reports on BBC news suggest that Vietnamese planes have sighted wreckage that appears to be from the missing aircraft.
It is however dark at present and confirmation or more detail is not expected until local daylight.

Very sad.

More details
BBC NEWS

Wreckage has been sighted, but NOT confirmed to be from the missing plane.
Terrorism is begining to look likely IMHO. Even the most sudden mechanical failure or bird strike or extreme weather, generally allows time for a plane to glide for some minutes at least and transmit a distress signal.
Even if the plane is subsequently lost with all on board, there would still be a record of the distress call, and some idea of the crash site.

Very sudden disaster without time for a Mayday call does perhaps suggest a bomb, shoot out, or a highjacking by someone not competant to fly the plane.

I am afraid that I now see no hope for those on board. Historicly there have been cases of survivors of air crashes being discovered long afterwards in remote places, but with modern locating beacons etc this seems unlikely in the modern world.

At cruise altitude if there is a rapid decompression of the cockpit the flight crew would have less than ten seconds of useful consciousness.

A 777 is a large aircraft. A rapid whole-aircraft decompression is suggestive of a fairly large hole which is suggestive of explosives. I dearly hope I am wrong.

I keep relating to the local experience with the Alaska Air flight some years ago. The plane suddenly plunged like a rock from 17,000 feet. Failure was due to a seizure of the elevator mechanism. First notification came from eye witnesses.

I agree that terrorism can't be ruled out, but it is way too soon to start proclaiming definitive statements. Good investigation unfortunately takes time.

Hanscom,

A pilot experiencing explosive decompression at altitudes around 35,000 feet would have from 30 seconds to several minutes of useful conciousness - and it takes only a few seconds to have an oxygen mask on. It is more likely that they were occupied and did not think to communicate (the old pilots addage is aviate, navigate, communicate - in that order). If they were busy flying the aircraft, they might not have thought to radio in.

Respectfully,

Jerry

The oil slick wasn't from the plane, it was ship fuel, not jet kerosene

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/10/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-knowns-unknowns/index.html?hpt=bosread

I know I'm speculating here, but most ATC radars rely on transponders rather then skin paints to track the aircraft. The 777 has two sets of transponder antennas and communication antennas.

http://books.google.com/books?id=HgGJtUc...nna&f=false

It seems unlikely that both sets were damaged simultaneously in anything but a catastrophic failure, and more likely that the transponder, radio, etc were turned off or disabled.

If you look at the pictures from Pan Am 103 (lockerbie) which broke up at 31,000 feet and TWA 800, which broke up at 16,000 feet; note the large pieces and significant floating debris. The fact that they have not found debris after 3 days of searching indicates it probably did not break up in flight.

Of course, I'll probably be proved wrong when they find the thing.

This situation is an eye-opener about the limits of technology in use. There is technology available to track planes via GPS, but it's not in widespread use. So, such technology doesn't benefit me as a practical matter.

Can someone here answer these questions: Would a cell phone's GPS chip be operable inside an airplane during flight? Also, would the GPS chip interfere with the airplane's communications? I'm just curious from a technological standpoint.

I'm still in shock trying to figure out what's going on in this case. In some travels, it's probably best not to know too much. Otherwise, I would just stay home as I become more risk-averse.

GPS chips are receivers only, they wouldn't interfere with the aircraft's avionics. I don't know how well they would work inside of an airliner, but experiments with cell phones seem to indicate that reception is very good.

Cell phones are tracked by GPS because the GPS chip inside the cell phone relays its its position to the cell network through the cell's signal. A hundred miles off of the coast I doubt there's cell network coverage.