Insight - Planning could hold key to disappearance of Flight MH370

A Japan Coast Guard takes photos out of a window of the Gulfstream V Jet aircraft, customized for search and rescue operations, during a search for the missing Malaysia Airlines MH370 plane over the waters of the South China Sea March 15, 2014. REUTERS/Edgar Su

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Whoever reached across the dimly lit cockpit of a Malaysia Airlines jet and clicked off a transponder to make Flight MH370 vanish from controllers' radars flew the plane into a navigational and technical black hole.

By choosing that exact place and time to vanish into radar darkness with 238 others on board, the person - presumed to be a pilot or a passenger with advanced knowledge - appears to have acted only after meticulous planning, according to aviation experts.