Sorry to bring the mood down, but I think it's pretty obvious that the plane went down in the water and they may find an oil slick but that's about it.   Not sure how long the so-called black boxes will ping for.
 
As for why, I don't think the hijacking theory is a bad one considering there were at least two passengers on the plane that got on that plane using stolen passports (this was discovered when they went to contact relatives of the two passengers and found they were still alive and not on the plane).
 
Naturally, I find it interesting that people focus in on one event like this when we have over 90 motor vehicle fatalities every day here in the U.S....  Flying is still the safest way to travel.
 
I've now taken this thread down so far that I'm forced to post a couple of bunnies in cups to raise the mood!
 

 
(Aren't they cute?)

I don't think it's a terrorist act.
Could it be the plane got badly out of course and was accidentally shot down by the military somewhere, and they don't want it to be found?
It seems the Malesian and Vietnamese authorities read news about the planes whereabouts in US newspapers.
Does it mean the US has better tracking of even passenger planes everywhere than the local air traffic control and military?
 
If the plane really kept on flying several hours after it vanished from radars (as the US newspapers say/based on info from US authorities??) it must have happened peacefully, otherwise the passengers had surely sent SMS or used their mobile phones somehow.
So, my guess is that whatever happened at the final stage, it happened suddenly, in two-three minutes. Before that there was nothing alarming taking place inside the plane.
 
The action movie version is, of course, that the plane is on some jungle airport and will be used for some kind of an operation soon.
 
 Craigb: AFAIK flying is  clearly the safest way to travel only if you count the miles. If you count the trips taken, the graphs look different. Who of us thinks that way? Does it matter if you crash on a local flight or on the way to Beijing?
EDIT. I did just find an article that says I'm wrong, per trip or per mile, air travel is safest.
 
 

Here's my 2 cents:
 
Hull crack (not uncommon in Boeing 777s), craft depressurised, passengers and crew lost consciousness, plane drifted lower and lower, went under. If this is so then at least everyone was 'asleep' when it happened...

There was a good article in Slate about trans continental flights and how common it is that there is no comms at all with planes for a good portion of the flights over water.
 
 
http://www.slate.com/arti...thing_in_aviation.html
 
JR

And now the latest news (by Reuters) might indicate my action movie version is possible :o/
The plane has possibly been spotted on the way towards Andaman Islands, northwest from Kuala Lumpur, the departure place.

I  heard it was spotted near Bermuda...

A couple of random thoughts....
 
Ever see the TV series "LOST"?
 
How about the plane that went down in the Andes Mountains with the soccer team.... they knew the flight path, and yet it took 72 days to find the crash and the survivors... who, when found, were dining on the ones who did not survive. That was over 2 months missing.
 
There are numerous crashes through the years where the authorities knew the path, and even with that information took weeks if not months to find the wreckage and in some cases, the flights were never found.
 
Whether it was a water crash and the plane went down in one piece and sank quickly, a land crash into an area where the plane is effectively hidden from view due to terrain or jungle vegetation,  passing through a time/space vortex/worm hole, or abduction by the greys or the greens......  who knows?

my theory is that no one is really looking due to red tape.
 
The "news" that sticks in my head is that no one is in charge.
They've got lots of paper to shuffle around for proper posturing and to see who has to spend their resources.
"Is not my Job"..
 

If you want some interesting reading on this, visit the forums on Airliners.net
 

Kalle Rantaaho
I don't think it's a terrorist act.
Could it be the plane got badly out of course and was accidentally shot down by the military somewhere, and they don't want it to be found?
It seems the Malesian and Vietnamese authorities read news about the planes whereabouts in US newspapers.
Does it mean the US has better tracking of even passenger planes everywhere than the local air traffic control and military?
 
If the plane really kept on flying several hours after it vanished from radars (as the US newspapers say/based on info from US authorities??) it must have happened peacefully, otherwise the passengers had surely sent SMS or used their mobile phones somehow.
So, my guess is that whatever happened at the final stage, it happened suddenly, in two-three minutes. Before that there was nothing alarming taking place inside the plane.
 
The action movie version is, of course, that the plane is on some jungle airport and will be used for some kind of an operation soon.
 
 Craigb: AFAIK flying is  clearly the safest way to travel only if you count the miles. If you count the trips taken, the graphs look different. Who of us thinks that way? Does it matter if you crash on a local flight or on the way to Beijing?
EDIT. I did just find an article that says I'm wrong, per trip or per mile, air travel is safest.
 
 

Yes, but when a plane crashes it takes a whole lot of people at one shot.  I guess the statistics don't really matter if you're one of the bodies in the morgue no matter which vehicle you were in.