Originally Posted by
planoramix
- Once reached the area with a deep ocean bottom and before running out of fuel the pilot, as smoothly as possible (FCTM 8.5), ditches the aircraft
- No doors are opened and the aircraft sinks in one single unit without leaving debries.
I see two large potential problems here.
1. By all indications, the aircraft either ran out of fuel, or in any event came within 1 hour from running out of fuel. What's the point of taking the aircraft that far out? It could have been ditched in exactly the same manner in South China Sea, for the added benefit that it would never have to go within sight of land after leaving Malaysia. If the pilot was afraid that shipping lanes in South China Sea were too dense and created a risk of someone seeing the ditching, there's Philippine Sea, and there are hundreds of thousands of square miles of desolate 15000' deep ocean within 1 hour's flight from Straits of Malacca.
2. Ditching as described would require perfect surface conditions. Roaring 40's would be the last possible place to hope finding these conditions. Take a look at historical weather satellite imaging here:
https://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/ On the night in question. East Bay of Bengal could have worked, but the actual search area looks pretty bad.
P.S. My 1st point above touches on a bigger conceptual problem. We are presented with a sequence of actions and we're trying to find an overarching explanation (and we naturally end up leaning towards ditching/suicide). But even within this sequence, its parts don't logically flow into each other.
* It is not necessary or logical to ditch/suicide in the Indian Ocean when you're flying out of Malaysia in the northeasterly direction.
* Even if you choose to ditch/suicide in the Indian Ocean, it is not necessary or logical to do this in the area where everyone is looking. Natural/logical choices are (1) Bay of Bengal, (2) middle of the ocean (halfway between Australia and Madagascar).
* Even if you choose to ditch/suicide in that specific spot (maybe you're aiming for Diamantina Trench, even though Mariana Trench would be deeper, equally as accessible, and therefore more logical), there's no reason to do a U-turn across Malaysia and then veer north towards Andaman Islands. As long as you're crossing land, might as well take a direct route and cross Java.
However, all of these difficulties hinge on a single assumption - final destination in southeastern Indian Ocean. Without that piece of data, all others point in the opposite direction: towards most likely final destination northwest or possibly west of Andaman Islands. The aircraft was systematically taken off the original course and placed on a standard route which, without further deviations, would have put it in the Persian Gulf. It could have deviated from the route at a later point, and we'd need more information to narrow down the destination, but any destination there would present a more coherent picture than what we have.