My theory: Those chose this aircraft and flight for a reason. The 777-200ER has very quiet engines and so it could land in the early morning hours and not attract a lot of attention...and the flight time would put it over the middle east in the 3-4 AM timeframe.
My theory, if it was state sponsored (Iran), is that they have thought about your concerns. IF I were planning this op...I would land it where I could hide it...and repaint it...then load whatever I wanted to on it (nuke? Dirty material?). It would be somewhere near a known air route. So for instance...If I knew (not hard to figure out) there were 777-200ER flying from Singapore or Manila to Jerusalem...I would paint it in Singapore Air colors and give it one of their tail numbers. Then at the designated time...I would "switch" the aircraft by shooting the Singapore Airlines 777 down...and let MH370 continue towards the designation.
You have to know that if this is a hijacking and its landed somewhere...they've thought through the end game. And part of that end game planning is how do you sneak it in when people are looking for it. This is how I would do it.
Add to this all the talk in the last week from Iran saying the liberation of Jerusalem is close. Perhaps they DO have a nuke....but its not to the advanced stages that we have where it could fit on top of a missile...but resembles Fat Man or Little Boy...and thus would need to be put on an aircraft with lots of lifting capabilities.
Hijacking a cargo bird would make more sense. No passengers to worry about. Sneaking a 777 back into any airspace now would attract too much attention.
I understand we’re not dealing with fishermen pirates here but the problem I can’t see the hijackers/terrorists getting around is simply that flying computers are getting updates all the time. The engines pinged 4 times in 4 hours for instance. Hit the air after a vacation and the aircraft is flagged as not having been updated in x number of cycles - which cycles have since been changed in frequency or order. Then all kinds of bells and whistles and fighter go-see’s go off. I’d imagine both Rolls and Boeing, for two, have softies working around the clock reprogramming for such an event - at least I hope they do. So the hijackers may find themselves in the same situation as the pirates in the Alabama Merck - in reality, with nothing of value on their hands and a whole lot of headaches about to rock their world.
Does anyone think that the Maldives are a possible landing site? They’re in range and Muslim. They would be a good launching point to head for Israel, too. Passengers are likely dead from the ascent to 45,000—that would be another indication that this was very carefully planned.