@DesparingTraveller
I'd appreciate a link to that unambiguous statement.
(that the flight path was dictated by human intervention) It's an important issue. It's not in the Malaysian authorities'
Interim Statement, and I can't find it in the accompanying
Factual Information Document. (This is 586 pages long admittedly, but I've looked in the likely places and quite a few others
, and in any case, it isn't the sort of statement I would expect to find in a factual summary.)
Rather than tedious debate about pheripheral issues, would you be willing to take the issue head on?
Do you believe that the known flight path (turnaround at IGARI, flight over the Malasian penninsula while skirting the Thai border, the turn towards VAMPI with the 330+ nm flight up the Malacca Strait, the turn towards Banda Achi, and then the turn at POVUS (all the while staying out of the Indonesian FIS) which brought the flight to a heading of almost 180 degrees) could have occurred as a result of anything other than human choice? If so, you are going against the consensus of opinion on the matter; thus, you really should explain your belief in detail.