If they lost instrumentation near the point where they turned around, what would have been the nearest place the pilot could have located/landed without instrumentation?

were flying low to try and navigate back to Kuala Lumpur visually. Although it seems like it would be a little surprising (in my non-expert opinion) that there could be one failure point that would knock out all forms of communication so completely, and that they didn't come into any sort of cell range while crossing Malaysia...

Assumption here is that radio was also not working? It should have been nearly an hour's travel back across Malaysia.

My imagination just takes off the more I hear about this. I hope they find it soon.

at present.

I tend to think this means a hijacking took place, perhaps the cockpit was stormed, (maybe the pilot had to use the restroom), and the cockpit door was open and the hijackers told the pilot to turn off the transponder and fly back to an unknown location.

I think there are terrorists in that region, I have heard there are many terrorist factions around those parts.

That is pure speculation on my part though!

I have to think this will be resolved soon, though. This would really start to get bizarre if they can't find the plane for very much longer.

If the plane was hijacked because they wanted the plane itself, rather than for a passenger ransome, it makes sense no one has taken responsibiilty or made any demands as of now.

At this point, anything is possible.