MH370: Looking At The Possibilities

1. Well-planned theft. Objection: there seems no way the craft could have been landed undetected. How could that have been the plan?
2. Attack.
3. Mechanical failure. Objection: it was awfully well timed.
4. Pilot suicide. Objection: There seems no motive and no sense in the method. If suicide was the intention, surely the pilot could simply have crashed the plane in the Gulf of Thailand?

Only attack has no obvious objections. In this scenario, some sort of sabotage, perhaps a bomb placed to disable the ACARS system and depressurize the flight deck, leaving the craft to run out of fuel and crash. The attack was executed at just the right moment for the plane to be lost.

I suppose it could have been accident, but this is unlikely. Avionics do not usually fail in a way that also disables flight deck crews. The timing — just the right moment for the craft to be lost — is also unlikely. Still, unlikely things do somethings happen. (Since I wrote this article, but before I published it, Chris Goodfellow has proposed electrical fire as a possible accidental failure mode. I can see that as a possibility, but the timing is awfully suspicious.)

Why…? Now we go into cloud-cuckoo land. Provoking an international media event, raising anger and drawing attention to something — but what? —, seems the most likely motivation. Cui bono?