Plausible

"He says it was pilot suicide, probably the first officer."  This was the opinion of a pilot who flies the same type of plane all over the world.  The brother of a gal I swim with, he said there was no way it would have been mechanical failure because that plane has so many backups and double backups. 

"He probably waited 'til the pilot had to go to the bathroom, then locked him out of the cockpit and shut everything down," he explained.  Then he would have dropped the oxygen masks, putting people into a state of euphoria before he turned off the oxygen.  They would have been dead within a few minutes, but painlessly, which explains why no one grabbed a cell phone, for instance.

That's about the most plausible theory I've heard yet -- especially from a seasoned pilot who flies the 777. 

To what lengths will we go to find it?  Apparently great.  But with all due respect, why?  The plane is gone, the passengers lost so if it's simply a matter of looking for the flight recorder to solve the mysteries, that should be up to the airline -- not the entire search and rescue forces of five or six governments.  But public money seems to be no object when it comes to retrieving the fallen.  Except for climbers who perish on Mount Everest, where approximately 200 dead bodies litter the route to the top.  Why doesn't human compassion compel families to bring down these loved ones?  Because corpse evacuations start at $30,000 and go up from there.  But if it's not your money, the sky's the limit (no pun intended). 

A few years ago, a woman of faith, a good friend of mine, lost contact with her daughter, who was travelling alone in Europe.  Believing the worst, she resolved not to go over and search, deciding instead to let God take over.  Were she dead, her soul would have been set free.  Thankfully, after more than a week, she heard from the daughter and all was well.  But the point is what is the point? 

With that in mind, I believe a watery grave is a fitting resting place all the same.