[IMSAI8080]

Indeed. Pilot suicide is just one theory and is not proven fact. Almost everyone thinks there was a decompression event on the aircraft. Another possibility is hypoxia causing pilot impairment as a result of decompression. Hypoxia severely inhibits brain function and turns you into an incompetent. It's similar to being extremely drunk or high on drugs. This happened on the Greek Helios flight that decompressed. The pilots can be heard on the recording becoming gradually unable to competently fly the plane and making ridiculous decisions due to brain impairment.

[sokoloff]

> Almost everyone thinks there was a decompression event on the aircraft.

I would wager that far more people believe in the suicide theory than an un-commanded decompression event.

[IMSAI8080]

It's a fairly common incident. There's a list of them:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontrolled_decompression

[sokoloff]

As is pilot suicide. There's a list of them as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_pilot

[IMSAI8080]

Well yes. Just to point out that list may be somewhat shorter that it looks as including 9/11 is somewhat of a technicality and it includes incidents that investigators think may be suicide but it remains unproven.

That list does actually mention MH370 as a possible suicide, which would be the correct way to describe it. It also states that several other theories have been offered. That's the point. The internet armchair crash investigators seems to think it was definitely suicide. Some TV commentators think it may have been suicide. However there are other valid possibilities and we just don't know.

If you want to hear about alternatives there's a good book by Christine Negroni called The Crash Detectives that goes through it in some detail including the hypoxia possibility as well as the suicide line of thinking and the pros and cons of each theory.

[abhibeckert]

MH370 changed course immediately after it left airspace where it was closely monitored, followed by several more minor corrections and then there's evidence the someone was controlling the final descent after one of the engines ran out of fuel.

All of that, combined with the fact the pilot had depression and tested the same flight path in a simulator, is pretty compelling evidence that someone was in control for the entire flight and yet didn't activate a distress beacon.

That makes it pretty hard to believe any kind of technical failure was involved.

A lot of the people who refuse to say it might be suicide are just following standard and deep rooted ethical journalism rules to avoid discussion suicide, based on an assumption it will encourage more pilots to do the same thing which could land the person who called it suicide liable for those future deaths.

Even if the TV journalist thinks it's suicide and is willing to say that, their employer's legal team will often order them not to.