Although aviation experts believe that the wreckage of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 that crashed on Saturday over the ocean between Malaysia and Vietnam will eventually be found, it is still astonishing that so far there are no clues of any kind. Malaysian civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, whose agency is leading a multinational effort to find the Boeing 777, said more than 1000 people and at least 34 planes and 40 ships were searching a radius of 185 kilometres around the last known location of MH370.

The latest information suggests that it was not a terrorist act and so far no terrorist organisation has claimed responsibility. The most plausible explanation so far is that the plane suddenly exploded in mid-air because of a catastrophic mechanical fault after straying from its normal flight path.

The wreckage could be hundreds of miles away from the search area. Pilot suicide is another possibility it happened twice in the 1990s.

A pilot could lock a co-pilot out of the cabin, turn off all communication and radar and crash the plane into the ocean.

Bad weather has also been discounted as all indications are that the conditions were good in the area where the plane is thought to have gone down.

Until the jet's wreckage is found and questions can be answered the world has been left to speculate.

Plane crashes always make big news, especially ones as dramatic and mysterious as this one, and travellers get the jitters.

But at times like these perspective is required, so here it is: every day more than three million people fly on about 50,000 commercial flights, making flying by far the safest way to travel.