So...what happened?
We're on day five since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, and there have been zero public leads as to what happened - just a lot of conflicting information and speculation. Which is ok - everyone seems to have a theory, and with the mystery deepening by the day, let's look at where we stand.
I've tried to consume as much information as possible, and am stuck on three plausible theories for what happened:
1. The "Flight 93" Theory: This blog post has been circulating on social media and I think it checks off some of the odd boxes of what we know so far. It posits a hijacking took place, with the hijackers (or flight crew turning off the transponders). The hijackers wanted the captain to fly to a major city to inflict some massive, 9/11-like damage, but instead the pilot at some point crashes in order to save the lives of others. The caveat here is this would have to happen without alerting passengers, since no 9/11-like phone calls were made. But this theory does explain why the change in direction, as well as why no terrorist organization has claimed credit - because it failed.
2. The "Pilot Intent" Theory: People have speculated about pilot error or some sort of accident - what if the captain, co-pilot and possibly the flight crew purposely crashed the plane? This was a theory floated by Alex Berenson, formerly of the New York Times. In his case, he raised the possibility of pilot suicide, followed by a locked cockpit and passengers unable to do anything. But that ignores the lack of phone calls like in the first theory. To broaden this theory out, let's say it's pilot intent - whether crashing on purpose or committing suicide. (This was a very experienced captain though). Even in these two theories there are lots of unanswered questions and unexplained occurrences. Which brings us to theory 3...
3. The "Anything Is Possible" Theory: All day yesterday we operated under the assumption the flight changed direction from Northeast to West and ended up last being tracked in the Straits of Malacca. Then, that went from fact to a possibility. We're getting severely mixed signals from Malaysian authorities - so what if they know more than they're letting on? What if the facts we're operating under aren't true at all? Obviously, every possibility would then be on the table. Maybe passengers did make phone calls, but those calls are being suppressed. Maybe there was some sort of embarrassing incident being covered up. Maybe they've already found the plane. If the facts, as we know them right now, aren't the facts at all, truly anything is possible.
Have a theory? Tell me about it on Twitter at @SteveKrak
