It struck me as odd, from the beginning, that a catastrophic event would happen right at the point of handover to another countrys ATC, where Comms were weak, and where radar coverage was nearing its limit. Not to say all the holes in the cheese lined up, it's definitely happened before, but .... if you planned to divert an aircraft, where else would you select?
Maybe somewhere that didn't involve immediately flying back over land, being tracked on primary radar and possibly having someone come up to take a closer look.
If I wanted to take an aircraft and head west, I might choose a flight that at least started off in the right direction and was heading out of (rather than into) PSR coverage...