At this stage I find the most intriguing part of this is why they would commit assets like P3Cs to a sea search in the Malacca Strait.
Nothing so far released would justify that. "Evidence of an Air turn back"...?
That is not an air turn back if they are searching there. Some of the journalists, notoriously ignorant on aviation matters, need to start asking some pertinent questions such as;
Why are valuable assets being used to search an area diagonally opposed to the original flight path and what evidence has been found to support that search?
If a primary radar trace has been observed flying in that direction, why is a sea search being carried out there... I.e. what evidence is there that the observed trace went down in the sea at that spot?
The Malaysians seem to be withholding information.