[ventus45]

Hi Joseph

It is an interesting coincidence, that Rodrigues Island is 2,570 nautical miles true heading 241 degrees from Medan, but in my view, only a coincidence.  

From what I can gather from going back over your twitter posts, I can not agree with your interpretation of the ping data (BTO divided by BFO) to justify, or substantiate it. Frankly, I can not fathom your maths.

I beleive the aircraft went via Medan and Milam, and then to the SIO as previously shown. I further beleive that the aircraft did deliberately descent into Medan, but did not land, and overshot at low level, then climbed back up to cruise altitude.  I have not publicly explained that part of my thinking yet, only to another researcher.

To go back to square one.

Those who subscribe to the "conscious crew (on mask or not) making desperate attempt(s) to land" whilst dealing with massive systems failures theorie(s) (many different in details), have suggested that the initial turn back, post Igari, was aimed at landing at Kota Bharu.  

That is both sensible and expected.

BUT, and it is a big but, if that were truly the case, why didn't they descend from altitude, circle, or otherwise maneouver, in an attempt to land ?

You have to assume they could not, which means you have to assume that the systems were, by that time, so degraded that they had little control authority.

Let's assume the EE Bay had been ravaged by fire.

If some (but not all) of the wireing looms had been melted etc, then some of the controls in the cockpit may have effectively been disconnected from, and thus could not talk to, the computers in the EE bay.

The fact that the aircraft appears to have been able to continue to fly quite happily at cruise altitudes and speeds, and make turns, but appears not to have been able to change altitude or speed in any significant way, suggests the autoflight stystem in the EE bay was still working, and at least those wireing looms connecting them to the other parts of the plane were still working.  

But that in itself is so unlikely, that it really suggests that the "fire", if there was one, was in the cockpit, not the EE bay (as many have postulated).

So, the crew (possibly severely injured by the fire) were by now battling degraded systems, partially melted panels (like the Egyptian 777) and probably severe pain, or worse.  

A nightmare of a situation, particularly if they had very little of anything working, presumably only the autopilot heading control,  so they may have been simply forced to "steer for the next airport", whilst they battled with trying to regain some real control over the aeroplane.  

This might explain overflying Kota Bharu, then Penang, then Medan - which,  SIGNIFICANTLY, offered the potential for a "strait in approach" to runway 23.

So, if the crew had been attempting a landing in Medan on runway 23, and if they STILL could not "get it down", and thus were forced to continue on, and subsequently became fully incapacitated, or further system degredation denied them even heading control, then they would have headed towards Rodrigues Island, and would be about there, by the time of fuel exhaustion.

It is an interesting possibility, but .................