[Principled]

But you have to consult the database, and perhaps they didn’t do so - until after the plane disappeared.

If they did not run the pports thru the system, how did they know, for example, the pport number? What did they do, write it down on a piece of scratch paper as the individual checked in?

I the pport was ever run thru the system, it would be caught. And you have to run it to check in at least. On int'l flights this is a big deal. How it could not be done is just unthinkable.

But if it was never run thru, how did they have such info to run after the fact?

[Robe]

The airline and Boeing know more info about this flight than they are revealing. If you remember Air France Flight 447, which went down in the South Atlantic in 2009, there was real time telemetry being sent every few seconds to airline maintenance,it told the heading, engine configuration airspeed, 28 parameters if I recall.
The B-777 is a most sophisticated airliner and was surely transmitting data until the end

[GOP Poet]

excellent point that no one has mentioned anywhere.

[livius]

They just scanned it, which is why they have a record. But they didn’t check it until the plane went missing,