So What Happened To The Plane?

[Raeven]

But that doesn't explain why the plane was flown -- by pilot and not autopilot -- to an altitude of 45,000 feet, which exceeds this aircraft's "safe" altitude and likely resulted in the deaths of all passengers and/or crew (except those who had sufficient oxygen), and it doesn't explain why the plane then flew at an altitude of 12,000 feet for a time, which appears to have been a maneuver intended to elude radar. The plane then had to have climbed back to an altitude of around 35,000 feet in order to have gone as far as it did with available fuel to crash in the Indian Ocean. All that indicates -- to me, anyway -- a knowledgeable pilot at the controls.