I did initially promise myself I wasn't going to get involved in this discussion, but I must admit I too am becoming quite perplexed by the lack of any wreckage in the expected area. There was one small fact that I observed at the start and quickly disregarded as meaningless, but as this situation is dragging out, I am beginning to suspect it may be more of a clue.
It is to do with the Transponder, or more to the point what we know has been received from it by the FR24 data. Or more to the point what hasnt been received. The very last report in the FR24 data chain lacks any altitude data. For it to have been processed, a recognisable message must have been received by the servers, otherwise the message before would be the last data we would see. What strikes me as noteworthy about this is that the most obvious sequence of events I can think of where this data output would be recorded, would occur when the transponder was deliberately cycled from Mode C (S) through Mode A (no alt) on the way to STBY (Off).
I might go one step further and suggest I am struggling to imagine any other set of events where this pattern of signal output would be observed.
Your thoughts?