It is incredibly rare for planes to go missing / crash, so all we are left with is the extremely unlikely.It's a 15 year old aircraft.
The Langkawi airport with it's 13,000 foot runway was closer than VietNam.
There have been cockpit fires in the 777 in the past, as well a wheel well fire where a hot nose wheel caught fire at takeoff.
Though it's clearly a modern aircraft, it's still a machine and all machines can fail.
The alternatives all require either hijackers taking over the plane and subduing all 227 passengers, or the pilots going rogue. Both are extremely unlikely.
I'm trying to distinguish known facts from supposition and rumor. I believe these are accurate statements of fact:
* The transponder and other device were manually turned off, several minutes apart.
* The course change was programmed into the computer.
* The plane changed altitude (33K > 45K > 25K).
* No distress signals or calls were sent over any frequency.
* The plane had 8 hours of fuel and was last heard from @7.5 hours after takeoff.
* It either went on that north or south arc
Has it been confirmed the plane routed to three way points after making the left turn?