Wholigan, that's a top call letting it run on here...bags of military interest from all angles and the main thread is just going to be too wackadoodle for must of us mil or ex mil types.
To quote a fictional character, if one eliminates the impossible, the whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
At the moment, there are a great many improbable scenarios (hence the whole mystery thing) there are not that many impossible scenarios. A "straightforward" aircraft accident is possible (the quotes because no accident is ever that straightforward); a terrorism event is possible; a non terrorist criminal act is possible and so is a suicidal type of thing. At the same time all these things look improbable because we are dealing with something we are not used...a modern day Bermuda Triangle. What makes it more explainable is the possibility that a number of rare event have lined up in a statistical outlier. For example, a criminal act that then turned into an accident, or a whole sequence of events, that make the mundane, look extraordinary.
Every poker player knows that sooner or later your four kings will run into four aces. As unlikely as it seems at the time (instantly arousing suspicions of cheating) that fact is that not only is it likely (if you play enough) it is a statistical certainty. In a similar way, with millions and millions of flights, sooner or later something totally freaky in every which way is going to happen.
For my part, I keep an open mind, but I won't surprised if the eventual truth is revealed as some tragic, simple human or mechanical failure (which kind reveals what two explanations I favour).
Thoughts are with the families..it must be hell on earth.