My view on this:
Something very dramatic happened aboard, maybe a fire in the electric bay and all went black, no comms, toxic fumes and so on. The captain promptly set a course to return and thought that Langkawi airport was the best option due to its clear terrain, low traffic and direct approach. Meanwhile things got worse in the cockpit, they lost conscience due to smoke inhalation and the autopilot kept it’s programmed course, passed low near Langkawi, Pulau Perak and all the Malacca Strait as reported by the radar, and went in the direction of the Indian Ocean.
Eye witness reports from Kudahuvadhoo of a low passing plane in the morning have been dismissed on the basis that no radar has recorded any unusual traffic, but maybe it’s because the plane was flying too low. And as we know, eyewitness reports are always taken with a grain of salt whenever there is an air incident.
I, for one, think that the airplane is somewhere not very far from Kudahuvadhoo in the Maldives taking into account that it flew at low altitude with lots of drag, it would be in the very limit of the 777 range at such altitude. If we cross a straight line from the point the transponder stopped transmitting to Kudahuvadhoo all this assumptions make some logic, they flew very near Langkawi, and crossed the Mallaca Strait. Also this has some consistency with the Inmarsat data.
Last edited by MountainSnake; 19th Mar 2014 at 20:04.