Assuming the info provided at the press sonferance is correct, it would be interesting to know what track the aircraft is believed to have followed. For instance, if it believed to have turned north-west after crossing the penisular and there is no sign of it having subsequently turned again, I would tend to assume it has taken the northern of the two possibilities. In addition, if it flew for up to 7 hours it would suggest that it would then have either had a controlled landing or a crash-landing by fuel starvation.
I may be wrong, but if it did not have a significant cargo load, at maximum continuous thrust I believe it just might have been able to reach 45000 feet toward the end of the flight, although whether it would have had enough fuel to fly that far at that thrust I have no idea (anyone with a flight-planning handbook?).
So what if from a point in the flight, it just flew off into the night with no-one at the controls? Indeed, could it have been following way-points in the database from a previous flight?
Last edited by daikilo; 15th Mar 2014 at 08:30.
Reason: comprehension