[P7_TOM]

Unable to resist - Mea Culpa.

Solid Gold from skyship007; shamelessly lifted from Pprune out of 463 posts; someone with a delightful SOH.  Many a true word spoken in jest.  FWIW, it makes more sense than a whole load of ‘other’ theories.  Henry Crun tops it all off.  Worth a look – HERE .

OK, so here is my dubious theory:

1/ The UK and US governments know exactly what happened to this flight.
That's cos 2 nuke subs turned up and would have found the EPIRB signal, as their gear when below the marine isothermal layer is incredibly sensitive. All oceans have fixed acoustic detectors on the sea bed that would have got additional bearings to fix the initial impact point. So even if the RN and USN chaps had been too busy drinking rum or surfing the net, the Langley boys would have hit the alarm bell with a very good fix.
One of those boats had a deep diving RV fully capable of retrieving the black boxes. Both subs had the ability to read both the CVR and FDR with help from base for the latter.

2/ If they ever find the wreck, the black boxes won't be found.

3/ The reason the UK or US governments will not say anything is simple, as I think it was another lone wolf left on the flight deck with one of the pilots either not playing with a full deck of German cards; OR, suffering from a partial decompression brain failure. An anti Chinese terrorist is another possibility, but less likely.

Now I expect some of you are wondering why the 2 governments might keep the facts secret. It's simple to understand why, cos both know that the only solution to real flight deck security is 3 crew (One trainee pilot) AND moving the WC door to allow direct access from a no door flight deck. El Al said all that in a big pre 911 report and it's just as true now as it ever was.

The computers are always on in the FAA and CAA, but in reality no one is home IF the problem is flight safety and the solution costs more than the airline industry pays their masters in political back handers each month.

Now the other question you might have is how have I jumped to this absurd conclusion. Simple, my father worked for the UK admiralty designing "Bits" for nuke subs and he and his old geeky mates are convinced that the impact would have been audible to the RN sub that was on patrol in the Indian ocean and at 50kts it would have arrived the same day as the US boat.

Even if the EPIRB failed, their combined capabilities would have found the wreck and black boxes. Their detection gear is an order of magnitude better than anything our friends down under are playing with, assuming they are even looking in the right position in the first place and not busy making another Veggimite sani and drinking a few cold ones.

The early EPIRB pings reported in the press would have been calibration tests from the subs, not the real thing (The press hinted at that). One sub sends a few test pings to the other to allow the range of any new signals to be calculated in a more accurate way.

Can't wait for part 2.