The ENTIRE diversion to Penang is in heading mode or manually flown. The aircraft has not flown via waypoints, a STAR, or instrument approach. This will increase workload. This is not a hypothesis but the primary radar recording EVIDENCE.
As far as diverting to Penang or Kuala Lumpur without radios and transponder, well Penang is closer, open 24 hours, very familiar to the crew and has virtually no traffic at night. And that’s what MH370 did.
But if you want to divert to Kuala Lumpur then go for it, but just remember that it’s further, and you’ll be playing chicken with a LOT of traffic. So you may make it to “home base”, but you have increased the risk of a mid air collision and ending up in an aluminium ball!
You're losing me here, GBO. It's all a nice theory except for the navigation. You don't have to be a 30 years C&T captain to think through the Nav side of it. You could
possibly argue they were so worked up over failures they never got around to LNAVing it. Maybe. But I think it's a stretch to choose Penang over KL although admittedly we are all sitting in armchairs while in the cockpit at the time it is a very different proposition especially if there's been an explosion of some sort. Who really knows which way he would go? Apparently 29% of international pilots polled would support your hypothesis. Nearly a third. That's not an insignificant percentage. On the basis of what we know, however, I think I'd have gone to KL.
It's been fun, though, and worth it just to see some of the sensitive ideological entities and online superhero saviours (you know who you are) in here getting wound up over someone else's theory which most likely will never make it beyond this thread.
Keep it coming, GBO, I find it very interesting.