I agree with SyGunson...you can not rule out eye witnesses ever....

1) a perfect example of why eye witness speak the basic truth and more importantly should not be discounted regarding this accident...the Boeing 777 that crashed in SFO, eye witness said the plane "flew straight up then cart wheeled over"...experts on all the news channels said this was impossible for an aircraft to do and that witness should be discounted....then guess what someone stepped forward and gave the FAA film footage of the plane accident = the crash was exactly how witnesses described.

2) the first time I ever witnessed a night space shuttle launch I was in college in Daytona.....when the space shuttle launched (75 miles from where I was) it light up the whole apartment complex where I was living, you would have thought it was day time...I have seen the "bright light" from the Space Shuttle clear across the other side of florida too.

4) If you can see contrails during the day miles away and miles up in the air you certainly can see something on fire during the night time.

3) Things that Malaysia Airline has not released...how many lithium batteries were on board the aircraft 10,25,100 batteries/how where they packaged/how long did they sit in the Airline holding cargo area before being loaded on board the aircraft (hours or days)/what were the temperatures in the cargo holding hanger/how long did they sit on the aircraft before the aircraft took off/who shipped the batteries/where the shippers on the aircraft/was there say a shipment of seafood packed in dry ice in the same cargo bay as the batteries? these are very important questions that have not been answered.

5) the day time temperatures from this crews takeoff airport were approx 93-99 degrees during the day time and approx 80 during the night time. If these lithium batteries sat for hours/days in the Airline cargo hold hanger area before being loaded on to the a/c then these batteries could have heated up substantially before even being loaded on to the plane. What is the temperature inside the cargo hold area.

6) there have been 140 incidents/accidents with lithium batteries. Could they have been the fire source that the oil rig operator witnessed?

nothing can be ruled out.