CNN is still doing almost non-stop coverage of the non-news about MH370. I'm now apparently in their stable of "experts" and I have to ration the time I can give them. I was on (off and on) from 8:30 to 10:00 last night, then they called me back and wanted me back on at 11:00. I turned them down but agreed to do 8:00 to 9:00 tonight (Sunday). It's all pretty silly and the constant attempt to find something to talk about results is some pretty silly things being said. One "expert" last night night said that he was encouraged by what he felt was growing "momentum" in the search, indicating that we're getting closer to finding the plane. Say what? Despite the deployment of greater and greater assets, nothing, nada, zip has been found. Contrast that to our work on the Earhart disappearance we have turned up an abundance of solid clues in multiple avenues of investigation, all pointing to the same conclusion. THAT is momentum.
What baffles me in the MH370 case is the resistance to accept and pursue clues that are staring the investigators in the face. We have an airplane that is acknowledged to have been abducted by someone with intimate knowledge of of its systems. They took deliberate steps to make the airplane "disappear" from in-flight monitoring then they changed course and continued to fly for several hours. Why? Now we learn that the pilot had been practicing "emergency landings" on his home flight simulator. Everyone is quick to dismiss that as something that is perfectly reasonable for a dedicated pilot to do, and under normal circumstances I would agree. But these are not normal circumstances. I'd like to know what kind of "emergency landings" he was practicing. Landing with thrust -reversers inop? Landing with an engine out? Perfectly normal. But what if he was practicing short field landings with no mechanical or systems malfunctions? That wouldn't be automatically damning, but it would be interesting to know - especially since he tried to erase his computer.
Maybe these clues are being followed and they're just not talking about it. I hope so.