Re: why no Sinkies on the crashed plane?
My Opinions:
1) Its strange that the transponder on the airplane was either not turned on/ or deliberately turned off before or during the crash. Or that the transponder (which if i recall correctly is in the tail section) was destroyed catastophically and hence could not squawk the position of the plane. This is why they are having a tough time looking for the debris field because they have to use the primary radar from Malaysia and Vietnam to try and ascertain the last known position. The transponder should have been squawking all the way into the ocean, and it would have given a very precise location of the crash site. Also, the ground radar does not give altitude of the plane where as the transponder does. When the transponder is squawking the codes assigned to the plane, it shows up on the ground radar as the flight number. If its not squawking, it shows up on the radar as just a blip.
2) Without knowing the location of the crash, its hard to look for the cockpit voice recorder/Flight Data recorder/Blackbox. The CVR emits a beacon, and the SAR ships have to drop a sonar phone into the water to listen for it. If they are in the wrong location, they will not pick up the beacon.
3) The 2 passengers that used the stolen passports to get on the flight...........this part is really suspicious to me. The passengers would have to insert new photos of their faces into the passport, which is not an easy thing to do. Than they have to get visas from the Chinese consulate, and they have to leave their passports there for a few days. Why did the Chinese not run the serial numbers on the visas and find out they were stolen? I am sure there is an international database somewhere that shares all this information. After all, the passports were stolen as long ago as one year. Ample time for them to be reported lost. The Austrian and Italian govts. would have cancelled these stolen passports, and when the Chinese consulate did the checks, the passports should have been flagged as stolen. Yet, the Chinese went ahead and issued the visas to these 2 invalid passports. I find this very curious. And if these 2 passengers entered Malaysia with these stolen passports, (as they must have since they flew from KL), why did the Malaysian Immigration not pick up on them too? Very strange if you ask me.