I can't believe the 'auto-pilot into the Indian ocean' theory being deployed now, for that to be true, wouldn't someone have had to change the plane's direction from it's original flight path, make those turns, get into a southward direction and then switch on the auto-pilot with a different flight path programmed into it...all the while having an 'unresponsive crew'? Whether they dreamed this up for 'search area purposes' or what, it makes no sense whatsoever. I call foul. And baloney.
This is how is understand it after reading the Australian report and other articles and video
They came up the assumption because it best fit the evidence they had as they were defining the search zone
Someone turned the auto pilot ON, so they believe the plane was being flown by someone until the final turn southward toward the Indian Ocean
The assumption, based on the evidence, was that the crew was 'unresponsive' from that point on during the final stage of the flight until it crashed
Malaysia, who is the investigating authority, has not come out and said this is what happened..this assumption was for defining and explaining the new search zone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-flight-370.html?_r=0
At a news conference here Thursday, Martin Dolan, the chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said someone on the plane had put it on autopilot, but he declined to speculate as to who might have done so and why. “If the autopilot is operational, it’s because it has been switched on,” Mr. Dolan said.
Hypoxia occurs when a plane loses air pressure and the pilots, lacking adequate oxygen, become confused and incapable of performing even basic manual tasks.
Pilots are trained to put on oxygen masks immediately if an aircraft suffers depressurization; their masks have an hour’s air supply, compared with only a few minutes for the passengers.
The plane, which left Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, bound for Beijing with 239 people aboard, made its turn south toward the Indian Ocean about an hour after it stopped responding to air traffic controllers.