The thing about the missing plane that bothers me the most is the possibility that...

[cherokeeprogressive]

It crashed somewhere on land, and there might have been injured survivors who needed IMMEDIATE medical attention, and not getting it suffered agonizing deaths or are still suffering.

[longship]

1. Where it was flying, there's little land and lotta sea.

The turn around story reported by Reuters has apparently collapsed, denied by the Malaysian authorities. It was not well sourced, so that's not surprising. Everybody reporting it was echoing Reuters. Not a credible report, in other words.

This is a sticky wicket, and the news media is fucking up. Probably the folks running the search and recovery, too.

Myself? I will wait for definitive evidence that they've found the plane, which everybody should agree has crashed, most likely into the sea. It's going to maybe take some time to find it. There's a lot of water out there.

[hollysmom]

2. I had a friend who was mother to the twin boys on Lockerbie - there are rarely survivors

there are survivors more on light planes and planes that crash on take off and landing, the odds of there being survivors on a crashed from the air jumbo jet are low. I think the best you can hope for is being quick and them being unconscious.