“Hard to believe that of the 239 cell phones on the plane, even with dead owners; not one has pinged on the ground or on the way to the ground.”
.....Perhaps they did PING and we’re not getting the story!
I’m sure we’re not getting the story, and we probably shouldn’t be.
If even one person on that flight had an IPhone with “Find my phone” enabled and had left their IPad with a family member who knew the password, they’d know exactly where that flight was, even if the phone was turned off. Possibly nobody had this combination, but I’m sure Apple could get the information if needed. The same applies to some of the Droid phones, I believe.
That said, one of the problems is that the plane was hijacked where most of the countries are 3rd World or nearly so. Malaysia has a great urban business area, but beyond that, it seems to be mainly peasants, and this is true of a lot of the region.
There may be enough infrastructure in these places to support GPS services, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t count on it.
I read that the Malaysians were supposed to have 4 people on duty at their radar station ... and they were there, but none of them noticed the unidentified plane flying across their airspace for an hour or so. It wasn’t until morning when an investigation was started and they reviewed the records that this was found.
Also, some of the other countries and regions around them simply turn their radar and location systems off at night to save electricity.
Comforting, right?