Flight 370: Clues Still 'Lead Toward the Cockpit'

The echo chamber that is the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has yet to yield much in the way of definites, but the focus continues to remain on the pilots and the theory that the jet's disappearance was not an accident or mechanical failure. This "was an intentional, deliberate act to bring down this airplane," House Homeland Security chief Michael McCaul said today. "Something was going on with the pilot. This all leads toward the cockpit." Former NTSB managing director Peter Goelz seconded that, reports Politico, saying that the intentional shuttering of the plane's communications equipment "is damning evidence that indicates something was going on in the flight deck."

Meanwhile, House Intel chair Mike Rogers wants to know "if there was some terrorist nexus" involved, adding that while many theories on the plane's fate abound, it "still may be at the bottom of the Indian Ocean." A look around at the latest:

• The AP delves into the relatively rare occurrence of pilot suicide, which was a factor in .3% of plane crashes in the decade ending in 2012.
• The possibility that the plane was hijacked has given hope to some passengers' families, reports the LA Times. "My gut feeling is that it landed. I still feel his spirit. I don’t feel he is dead," says the partner of American passenger Philip Wood.
• Pakistan says the plane never registered on its radar, reports CNN—and if it had, it would have been treated as a terrorist threat.
• India today called off search efforts for the jet pending "a strategy for further searches" from Malaysian officials, reports the AP.
• Slate runs down the 634 runways where the missing plane could have landed.

(More Malaysia stories.)