I wasn't following the investigation too closely, but the conspiracy theories I saw weren't too convincing:
Mostly, they highlighted instances of authorities either correcting previous mistakes, or withholding information slightly longer than necessary.
Yet it's quite obvious how these two errors are related: If you're eagerly accused of the former, you'll tend to indulge in the latter.
It's also important to consider that the Indonesian authorities were simply overburdened by such an investigation, were likely to make all sorts of mistakes under stress, and had to content with competing interests that were impossible to satisfy.
Then, this investigation happened to involve dozens of authorities and companies from different countries, making errors in communications, distrust, and cultural clashes much more likely than, say, a US-made aircraft crashing in Colorado.
The debris that was discovered in Australia and Africa seems to, roughly, validate the initial search efforts. While there may be competing theories pointing to slightly different areas of the Indian Ocean to be searched, there's nothing supporting the "real" conspiracy theories that the plane was diverted to Riad and will be used to start WW III.
Oh, right, by conspiracy theories I meant something involving foul play closer to it being ditched in the ocean, not those theories that claim it was diverted to somewhere in Asia.
By contradictions I meant the stuff like this [1]. Malaysia got slammed internationally by governments all over the world for their misleading and contradictory statements. It was hard for everyone to explain the particulars away as the being overburdened and stressed. If it had been, I imagine other governments would have been more understanding of that and not slammed them so hard.
One particular incident that left me flabbergasted -- but which perhaps could be explained (though not excused) by miscommunication -- was this one, where I seem to recall (though I can't find the exact article) that they confirmed the flaperon found belonged to the plane before even the French -- who were the ones doing the analysis -- came to such a conclusion [2]:
> On Wednesday, Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, said the flaperon that washed up on the French territory in the Indian Ocean, since transported to France for analysis, was from the doomed flight. But his assertion has not been backed up by the other authorities involved in the investigation, and the dissonant stances have infuriated many relatives of those on board the plane, who have waited more than 500 days for concrete clues into the fates of their loved ones.
> Transport minister Liow Tiong Lai says more possible MH370 debris has been sent to France for analysis.
“Why the hell do you have one confirm and one not?” Sara Weeks, the sister of New Zealander Paul Weeks, who was on board, told Associated Press. “Why not wait and get everybody on the same page so the families don’t need to go through this turmoil?”
> The claims and counter-claims continued on Thursday when Liow said a team on the French territory of Réunion had collected more apparent plane debris. The claim was contradicted by French officials, who said no new material in the search for MH370 had been turned over to French authorities.
How in the world they could jump to conclusions before the people actually doing the investigations certainly beats me. I could see it as being a miscommunication, but this was not a one-off incident, and that got harder and harder for the international community swallow the more times it occurred. I recall getting pretty convinced that they were covering up something, though I couldn't go farther and speculate on what exactly that might have been. (When I heard about the misdetected pings I thought perhaps they should have been looking into the Asia possibility too, but only because they had already poured so much effort into other dead end that this seemed worth a shot, not because it seemed otherwise particularly plausible. I dismissed that idea pretty quickly after they found parts from the plane.)
> How in the world they could jump to conclusions before the people actually doing the investigations certainly beats me. I could see it as being a miscommunication, but this was not a one-off incident.
It is probably just human nature. Many people will continue to think and do what they did before, even after having the error of their ways explained to them. While you might expect a person in a position of responsibility to act more responsibly, it also seems possible that such a person might consider himself to be more competent than average, which would exacerbate the Dunning-Kruger effect - in this case, thinking his hunch about the debris is as good as a conclusion by crash investigators.
A false report of more debris being found might be a misunderstanding of the original find being reported through different channels at different times. An impulsive person, eager to say something, might not consider that possibility before making an announcement.
Mostly, they highlighted instances of authorities either correcting previous mistakes, or withholding information slightly longer than necessary.
Yet it's quite obvious how these two errors are related: If you're eagerly accused of the former, you'll tend to indulge in the latter.
It's also important to consider that the Indonesian authorities were simply overburdened by such an investigation, were likely to make all sorts of mistakes under stress, and had to content with competing interests that were impossible to satisfy.
Then, this investigation happened to involve dozens of authorities and companies from different countries, making errors in communications, distrust, and cultural clashes much more likely than, say, a US-made aircraft crashing in Colorado.
The debris that was discovered in Australia and Africa seems to, roughly, validate the initial search efforts. While there may be competing theories pointing to slightly different areas of the Indian Ocean to be searched, there's nothing supporting the "real" conspiracy theories that the plane was diverted to Riad and will be used to start WW III.