Originally Posted by Sorensen

So, hypothesis! Plane flying at altitude, has a mid-air collision with a smaller high altitude something, a drone, a small cargo plane, falling satellite pieces! Ok a long shot, but with all the planes in the sky it is a wonder that there are not more possibilities or consideration of collisions.
The burning debris Mike McKay sees is the result of the collision, BUT the flames seen are the smaller plane/drone/falling star whatever.
Flight MH370's 777 is a big plane, nicely stable in the air and it's wide body giving it great stability (flight MH370 does not go down). The cockpit area is damaged in the strike, windows implode, all electronics destroyed, responders go off as per switching off theory, but only because part of the cockpit area or where the switching is located is destroyed!
Pilots are dead, explosive decompression dominos throughout the plane, maybe some oxygen masks drop and some passengers still remain conscious. The cockpit area is destroyed, no chance of recovery.....BUT, one of the three slave computer systems, located in the rear of the plane takes over autopilot, the plane was bumped from it's flight path due to the impact, but after the slave computer came online it stabilized the plane(hence the direction change). The status is now a new heading assumed correct by the new computers autopilot, the autopilot oversees maintenance of all flight speeds, heights etc. nobody from within the plane crew or passengers if conscious are able to do anything, the plane now has no cockpit or even lost 5 meters of it's front section. Violent wind blasts through the plane and may cause significant speed loss! The plane fly's under the autopilot which goes another 500 km in one direction, over the Andaman Sea, then adjusts course according to degree of course change preset for a location beacon approximately near Hong Kong (but the plane is over Andaman Sea), this preset adjustment sends the plane deep into the Indian Ocean at altitude until it runs out of fuel. Or, the direction change takes it north into the second tracking zone assumed now by the satellite responders.