"Source: Flight 370's altitude dropped after sharp turn" CNN

[BlueStreak]

5. Exactly. Trying to gin up sinister motives is getting pretty old

Making a rapid turn is consistent with the idea of heading back to a runway in Mayalsia or Indonesia with which the pilots would be intimately familiar. Dropping altitude might have been a necessity to gain control, or it might have been an effort to prepare for a soft water landing in case they couldn't make it back to an airport.

By now it is abundantly clear that there was no abduction plan and no theft of the aircraft. If either of those was successful, we would have heard of ransom demands or else the spies would have heard serious chatter on that by now. And if either of those scenarios were unsuccessful, that would have resulted in a crash either in the sea near India/Pakistan or on land. A crash at sea in those busy waters would have turned up some debris by now.

So those scenarios just didn't happen and anybody still advancing theories like that really needs to check himself or herself.

It seems highly likely that the plane overshot its intended emergency runway and kept flying south until it ran out of fuel. That can only be equipment failure or suicide, and we have absolutely no reason to suspect suicide. Continuing to advance a theory of a suicidal pilot without any justification is an insult to the honor of the pilots and cruel to the families of all those lost on this flight..

It seems clear enough by now that the only really likely scenario is equipment failure. It came suddenly. The pilots tried to turn around with the idea of landing, but they were overcome and the plane did a "Payne Stewart."