Any particular reason or significance of this?

Malindo Airlines had an incident at Subang. He was at the press conference for addressing that.
Malindo Air confirms plane caught fire but landed safely in Subang

Yes the Minister explained that the whole area is shrouded in cloud and the French had done a great job in homing in on the few gaps that cropped up from time to time and then spotted the 122 objects. The images are dated 23rd March, was that 23rd March at Airbus in France (and possibly 24th in the Indian Ocean) or 23rd March in the search area? Either way, as you imply, this all takes time.

That thing looks very much like a fire suppression bottle to me. Is anyone official on the way to have a look?

Sure looks like a fire bottle, but doesn't look big enough to be from a 777, look at the size in relation to the foliage.

It doesn't matter if you know the code. Let's leave it at that.

Mobile Phone Survivability?
 

One thing which nobody seems to have mentioned so far is the possible use of onboard images and audio recorded on passenger and crew mobile phones in any investigation.

Many on here are agreed that the most useful portion of the CVR recordings will have been overwritten and this may or may not be recoverable. There is also concern that both DFDRs may have been disabled during whatever events occurred on MH370. It is not outside the realms of possibility that when the wreckage is finally located, there may be very little data available to investigators.

If, and it's a big if, passengers and crew were still conscious during some or all of the flight south, it is very likely that audio and video recordings exist on the 200+ mobile phones on board at the time.

In the old days Nokia phones were famous for their ability to survive immersion in water and work perfectly again after removing the battery and leaving them in a warm place for a few hours. I have seen a few telecoms engineers posting here in the last two weeks. Does anyone know the likely survivability of a modern 'smartphone' (or more relevantly, the data contained) inside a crashed aircraft in deep salt water? :confused:

HH, the bottle could be for the APU.

Google Earth and Google Maps do the same thing. Its a geospatial convention.

Ventus - your water spill theory sounds possible, with reservations.

A water spill like the QF2 747 water spill would have initially caused numerous problems. You can easily imagine the pilots rerouting to Langkawi. But why wouldn't they transmit a mayday? Maybe they were too busy flying and fault diagnosing? Seems unlikely (but not impossible - after all, the 747 water spill crew didn't declare a mayday either).

Anyway, after 30 minutes the plane battery runs out and they lose all communication and navigation and many other critical systems. At this point they cannot tell anyone what is happening and they would be flying blind in a crippled plane at night with only basic flight controls. At this point they are in real trouble.

It does seem possible that in this scenario (especially if its cloudy) they get disoriented or accidentally induce a turn, and head south, with occasional changes in altitude and direction, hoping to find a runway somewhere. Their situation would get worse and worse, and eventually they run out of fuel and get forced to ditch. But would they really end up getting THAT lost?

@Mahatma Kote

Re. Use of a PC secure deletion tool being a "red flag": That would be an old policeman's attitude - "what do you have to hide". I'd suggest that in these days of online privacy concerns, more people than you might think use such tools.

Should they all be suspected of illicit activity? No.

The flight simulator is an odd sidelight in this sad episode. As usual, evidence from the aircraft will tell the tale.

Whilst this would indeed be a dreadful event, it would actually be a most propitious time to ditch.

There are lots of other SAR aircraft on the route. In the search area thee are specialist ships.

As far as I am aware (B747 Tech in a past life) the APU and engine fire bottles are the same size.

There was a case about 3 years ago, a Spanish fisherman recovered a camera that had been lost in the Atlantic some months before. The camera was ruined but the images on the SD Card enabled the owner to be traced. SD Cards are solid so water pressure us unlikely to be a factor and that one had survived immersion in salt water.

Good call.

Who says they were trying to divert to Langkawi? Some contributors to this thread have tried to suggest this, but all of their theories were purely speculative and were pretty much debunked.

If, as you suggest, they were still able to fly the aircraft, then it’s far more likely that if they had a problem then they would have attempted to return to KLIA (which, unlike Langkawi, operates around the clock). And I simply can’t believe that they wouldn’t have communicated their intentions. Even the ill fated Swissair 111 was in contact with ATC before it’s demise.

Even after 30 mins, the aircraft can continue flying and they still have a good old reliable standby magnetic "Spirit" compass.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17...s.jpg~original

What about a horizon? Would be messy without one at night?

I work for the bad guys' defence teams. Drug dealers, paedophiles etc. If I see a deletion tool in use I know they are up to no good.

I'm definitely no cop nor have I ever been. I just know what's normal and not normal.

Getting on topic. If a deletion tool has been used then there are very grave suspicions about the user. Let's wait and see what is revealed in subsequent investigations.

Every time a terror act happened somewhere the US noticed an increase in telephon "traffic" in certain areas.We`ve heard anything yet,of course thy don`t have to tell us,buit i think it`s possible something would have been leaked already.
Don`t saying it was no technical faillure,but i thonk one should really take a closer look at the state of mind of the ctp after his wife left him.For some people it could have an devasting effect.

About the possible try to go back to KUL,i´ve have thougt,they would have waited til dawn,fuel was enough,maybe not a good idea to arrive therein the middle of the night with no means for comms.

GE takes either. In the example for the GE search box, Lat comes first. I've never heard of Longitude being given before Latitude, certainly not in aviation applications.