[YZF]

If the author is hanging around: Good debunking. Wouldn't there be situations where the pilots would be dealing with an emergency and not radio ATC? Given they are so far away from an airport getting priority to landing doesn't seem like the most important thing. E.g. here (http://www.deltava.org/library/B777%20Manual.pdf ):

TOTAL POWER LOSS

- Determine if possible to reach airfield, if not search for an appropriate field or clearing to land in.

- Stay on or above the glide slope at all times during approach. Once you get below it, you cannot get back up above it.

- Use full flaps for landing.

- Set Auto-Brake FULL

- Continue as if normal landing.

(I don't know if this is equal to the pilot's checklist but there's no radio ATC in there, I guess that's a subset of "normal landing")

I'm sure the airplane will be found eventually and the mystery will be resolved. Right now there doesn't seem to be enough reliable data publicly available to form any sort of conclusion.