[Fori362]

Elephant One. The pilot went rogue and threatened to do something nasty and they shot it down; cover up to follow.

[Playing Devil's Advocate here...]

But then the MYG could admit to that without any embarrassment or censure: 'Not an easy decision, but we had no choice - there would have been greater death on the ground'?

And if they hid it, where would the wreckage be? On land? - SCS? The Straits? The latter both very busy places which were initially searched, where wreckage could be seen and reported, and be expected to wash up. Not easy to hide.

Elephant two. The aircraft was electronically hijacked and they buggered the hijack up, lost the ship and the 'cred' that goes with it. Silence is golden and back to the drawing board.

If a third party hijack (not State) then we'd have to assume the main players knew what happened, otherwise why the need to classify and hide information.

Elephant 2b might be that the electronic hijack was successful. And the aircraft, when item(s) of interest had been removed, was given a descending flight plan to neatly fly itself into a remote part of the ocean on autopilot before dawn. Evidence disposed of. No need to villify any crewmember as the culprit in this scenario.

It's interesting that no attempt has been made to attribute this to any terrorist group (not even the usual suspects) nor anyone else.