Agree with several contributions (including a couple whose postings have disappeared). A lot of questions remain unanswered by both the airline and the authorites in Malaysia elsewhere.
Nobody seems to have addressed the question of how did those with the stolen passports enter Malayasia – if in transit at KUL from Thailand, how come that Thai exit immigration did not pick up on the stolen passports? Thailand issues entry visas, which should have expired in both the stolen passports. If they were already in Malaysia, where are their photos and fingerprints that Malaysian Immigration take for all arrivals?
Could it be corruption, incompetence or something more sinister?
I also find it more than a little puzzling that Malaysian ATC did not tell the airline that its plane was missing much sooner, and why MH’s own systems did not alert them sooner. Why, if it now appears, there are radar indications that the flight turned around has it taken 36 hours for this info to come to light?
Also, I am surprised that there seems to have been little mention of the FAA Airworthiness Directive for Boeing 777’s issued as recently as Wednesday 5th March 2014 which refers to “cracking and corrosion in the fuselage skin, which could lead to rapid decompression and loss of structural integrity of the airplane.”
(http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgad.nsf/0/d91639a24674ca8f86257c920050edf7/$FILE/2014-05-03.pdf).
One lesson that surely needs to be learned from this event is that immigration and airline security systems world-wide need to be linked to the Interpol database for missing passports and those travelling with such documents detained. Had that been the case in this instance, closer attention might now being paid to the question of the structural integrity of the Boeing 777 aircraft in this instance.