Comment Re:Was there any ACARS data? (Score 4, Insightful) 190
The only problem with the thought of losing portions of the planes controls in stages, the first two or three would have had to have quickly knocked out the transponders, the pilots radio (separate from the transponders) and the backup radio (separate from the transponders and the primary radio) before affecting anything else on the plane that would have caused the pilots to message someone on the ground that bad things were happening. Transponders disappearing usually gets a call from someone on the ground, which the pilots would respond to if they could. Needing to switch to a backup radio will have the pilots letting someone on the ground know in short order. If you assume they lost electrical system power due to total engine failure (which would merit a fairly rapid SOS call as a result), that still wouldn't prevent the ram air turbine from generating the power needed to send a distress call.
It isn't unreasonable to start from an assumption of catastrophic failure of the airframe and start your search on that basis while investigating other possibilities in parallel. It could also be due to a pilot or co-pilot deciding they wanted to take the plane down, however, since the transponder can be disabled from the cockpit (Think Egypt Air MS990, though that was never declared officially to be a pilot suicide), but then the plane would have quickly shown up as a transponder-less blip on multiple radar systems, since that air space is quite well covered along the flight path and to both the south and west. To the north east, it should have been picked up at Con Son, unless it really was under control to head back south east towards Riau Islands. Chances are good, whatever direction it went, including straight down, either the Malaysian or Vietnamese govts. will eventually announce the radar tracks they watched it on, given that the last transponder point had the flight only ~250 km from the closest Malaysian airport (not to mention Malaysian Navy ships out on normal patrols) and about 1/2 of that from a Vietnamese naval base which it would have flown directly over if it had continued on path.
Hmm, just checked Google News for an update. Reported in the last 30 minutes, the Malaysian military is saying the plane appeared to turn back south according to radar.