2 thoughts
1) Inmarsat. Has anyone thought to ask them if they went back to the prior flight of this aircraft and verified the pings match it's known location? One you might be able to calibrate out any error from the comparison. And two, if the satcom RT had been swapped out with another aircraft, we are chasing our tails yet again.
2) I've seen somewhere that there was 600+ runways that the aircraft could land on within its range. I assume they mean "safely land on". What if you don't care about the airframe, but you would like to try not to kill anyone if possible. I came across an island on tomnod that appeared to be deserted, but you could see remnants of what appeared to be WW2 defenses along its southwestern side. Maybe an abandoned WW2 strip on a deserted island. If the pilot did this for political motivations, maybe he's siting till they run out of mangosteens before he manually sets off the ELT.
I'm just trying to hold out hope.
