Forgive me if this has appeared on earlier pages, I looked and searched some key words and didn't find it on either of the main threads.

For these flights -- Kuala Lampur or Singapore to points as far north as Beijing -- would there have usually been meal service underway at this interval of time after take-off? Beverage service? Or does this wait until landing in this market area? I was wondering if many of the passengers would have been awake and the flight atttendants active when all this went wrong.

Assuming the passengers were alive and unaware of anything, the nature of the turn to the west would have been noticed unless it was very gradual. For example, I was on a flight diverted to Anchorage from 1000 miles to the south last summer and you only noticed it by the shadows, which they woudn't have had at night.

If people were alive in the cabin they surely knew there was trouble at dawn, flying south over the ocean. The plane went down in daylight, as I understand it. Someone would have noticed the direction of sunlight even if it was cloudy.

Also, do any MH flyers know if the on-board flight moving map systems on the passenger displays are used on these planes? Does that go down with the other systems being shut off or otherwise failing?

I am not advancing any theory, just trying to understand this from a passenger's point of view. I am stunned that the plane was airborne at the time we all began to hear about it and the familiies began to believe a crash had already happened. My heart goes out to those affected by this tragic loss.