It seems from today's posts that some people still doubt the scenario leading to the search area. I agree with some of the comments about 'why perform such an elusive flight path to ultimately ditch in the ocean?'. Also the assumed path after loss of contact with civilian ATC appears to be based on military primary radar tracks with no secondary radar identification. I've gone back to the start of this mystery and looked at MODIS images for the area. On 8th March there were some fires and smoke visible NE of Quang Khe in Vietnam - which very close to the planned flight path and also on the same radial from the communications satellite as the published 'arcs' (but in the area between the N & S arcs, if extrapolated). The fires were not apparent on the 6th March, probably not there on 7th (although SCT/BKN CU over the area), visible on 8th but not there on 9th (although perhaps one faint area surviving). Just possibly MH370 if control was lost soon after the last contact with ATC? The MODIS image can be found at
Rapid Response - LANCE - Subsets (MODIS Aqua bands 7-2-1 at 250m resolution) and the area of interest on 8th March is close to the right edge of the image about 2/3 of the way down. Apologies if this idea has already been explored but I though it perhaps worth adding to this thread as another possibility.