Post #4077, Techgeek said "Please disprove this line of reasoning..."
You based your conclusion on hourly data updates. Revisit using updates that are twice as frequent.
Andy Pasztor, WSJ, broke the story about the data transmissions on Thursday. His report indicated that the data was in 30 minute increments. Pasztor initially reported that the plane could have flown up to four hours after the last official reported contact of 01:41. In an interview with NPR, he also said that it was possible that it (the aircraft) had landed.
Behind his report is the implication that data points are missing from a regular 30 minute interval pattern.