If they were not included in the AAIB curve, it would certainly change the shape of that curves during the first couple of hours.
In fact, there is NO curve for the pings retrieved, just dots. For the "predicted" data, as the are from maths, ok to publish curves. But joining the data by a line between true pings it is (IMHO) way too far. Look at the charts (blue dots have been made bigger on the chart without the lines just for better looking):
Just to show the limit of these data. The chart are respectively from
http://www.straitstimes.com/sites/st...325/graphe.jpg and from Excel by using the values deduced from the first chart (and thus not perfectly the same).