[XWGT]

re Phones. Firstly, there are no mobile phone towers in the ocean. So it dosnt matter if it survived the crash / impact / whatever.
Secondly, the ring you hear when you call someone dosnt come from the other phone. Its comes from the phone network, to let you know something is happening. Its not an indication the other phone is receiving or responding.
Thirdly........your asked to turn your phone off when you get on a plane.

It now looks like the plane was many hundreds of klms off course and heading the wrong way with its transponder turned off. that's three big ticks for hijacking in my book. I'm going to take a guess and suggest the passengers overpowered the hijackers (who wouldn't after 9/11?) but the plane has then gone down with no experienced pilot on board.

Crazy case all round.