Just a thought and nothing more. Maybe MH370 did catch fire, was put out, but fried all the electronics, so they had no choice but to fly visually?
Its good wishful thinking however as we have talked before then they would have gone for an emergency landing close to shore.
There is no way they would fly 7 hours south in the middle of the ocean with no chance of help from people on shore.
The pilot was proven to have on his simulator runways that were available to him. Even if no communication the pilots are trained to fly by sight if they have to. They have emergency training for every possible situation and if no communication and even at night they have instructions and training to emergency land. I've read a lot of the emergency protocols for loss of communication at night. At night is all the more reason the plane would have tried to get near land, airport, or city lights to keep visual contact. Having visual contact with ground lights helps the pilot if no instruments are working.
Everything I have read said to get to nearest airport and obtain alternate communication by flying low to use cell phones or satellite phone if they have them. Or alternate VHF radio communication if that is only thing working. The emergency protocols I have read even talk about pilots should have hand held compasses available to them, flashlights, etc. The flashlights are used to view the instrument panels if lighs on the panels are out.
None of the emergency procedures I have read says to fly into the abyss away from land and away from help.
Remember the 1 plane that crash landed in the ocean near a popular travel beach destination. It worked really good because people on shore immediately phoned for additional help for them and boats got to them quickly and saved some people in the water.
I know we have talked about all this before and we all tend to go around and around on things because its all we got.
None of us really know for sure what happened but IMO I have ruled out mechanical failure due to the plane not trying to get to nearest airport as all emergency protocols say to do.
IMO, I am leaning towards 1 of 3 things.
1-It was shot down
2-It was hijacked by pilot or someone else and crashed either on land or water somewhere much more closer to where last communication was done with ATC
3-A combination of 1+2 with pilot trying to get his friend's court case reversed and was demanding this or he was going to fly into a building so they had to shoot it down before he approached any buildings
If it was shot down I can think of at least 2 reasons why. Either a country just made mistake thinking it was hostile and now they want to hide their mistake OR #3 above and the Malaysia government or military are trying to hide their involvement. There was enough time early on for them to pickup all debri in the sea if they knew exactly where they shot it down.
All JMO on things. The only thing I am certain of is Malaysia has sure acted very sketchy from the very beginning and I agree with the families that they feel they are not being told the truth from the start. Its like Malaysia has said to everyone...."Go Home People. Nothing more to see around here".