A bit late but thanks, ZAZ, for posting the link:
The sinister, scary impact of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 - Intelligent Travel
This is an intelligent piece of writing and I thought, bearing in mind the criticism of the amount of dross that has been posted on this thread, that is was worthwhile highlighting this paragraph: (the italics are mine)
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 702 was significant not because it involved the alleged hijacking of an aircraft heading to the EU and a major capital city but because the story was not released by professional or government agencies and it involved one of the crew as the alleged hijacker. Online enthusiasts, rank amateurs and other crowdsourced intelligence were responsible for the identification, reporting and tracking of the incident which in turn fed the international news community. If not for this happenstance and skilled online community coming together at that particular time and seeing the incident through until conclusion, it would have just been a single line news updates online or during the evening news.
If one is intelligent enough to spot and ignore the dross, one can learn a lot from a thread like this, as indeed I, and I am sure many others, have. Thanks to all of you.