I think people are forgetting the far eastern face saving culture. They have locked themselves into a spiral which is rapidly disappearing up their own fundaments.
I posted it before, there are only TWO facts:
1. Where the transponder transmitted last
2. Where the ACARS last transmitted.
Anything else cannot be proven yet!!!!!
To quote Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, via Sherlock Holmes,
"When you have eliminated the improbable the impossible must be true"
The aircraft is somewhere not too far from its last KNOWN position.