situation. it s horrible to think about. david, philip hall wants to know, debris seems to be southeast of the last known location, does this imply that the pilot tried to turn around or is this due to currents? there s actually three options. one would be because of current. the other would be that he chose to turn around as being the most safe path to get through what he was going through. the third would be that he incurred a deep stall. in a deep stall recovery the aircraft is intent on getting or the pilot is intent on getting air over the top of the wings so he doesn t really pay attention to which direction he s going at that point. he s going to go the direction the plane wants to go. that s certainly good to know. richard, david writes is it possible that in an attempt to recover from a stall that a vertical stabilizer failure occurred? he s referencing american flight 587.