The plane wasn’t found at all. They never sent robots down the a plane they didn’t find. It was all faked. After all, we know exactly where the real plane ended up.
Right. But we don’t know whether they faked it by:
- Simply creating a false report.
- Faking robot footage; or
- Planting fake wreckage.
Considering how cold blooded the the various groups concerned with this island have been in the past, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had bought a Oceanic branded aircraft, filled it with new recruits and then crashed it into a spot in the ocean only a few hundred feet deep. Would have been a simple matter of taking some ROV footage and making sure that the onscreen displays showed the correct fake data. From that point on, no one is going to mount another expedition to Mariana’s trench again just to shoot some more video.
I’m trying to find out how it got 4 miles deep in the first place. The front section of the airplane crashed on the beach and the back section hit the ocean near the other side of the Island - but it looked pretty shallow to me.
My question is how did they find the wreckage without finding the Island?
I mean, they could have found some minor wreckage I suppose, but I don’t see how that’s really possible.
Considering how Oceanic Airlines has played such a prominent role in these guys lives, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hanso Industries.
- All of the above, and in addition, killing a bunch of random strangers, planting their corpses in the fake wreckage, and forging their dental records.
It’s pretty clearly not *our * flight 815. 
Well, they could kill off a bunch of new recruits, or simply fill a plane with cadavers; just a bunch of body parts would be more realistic; and of course, if realism wasn’t a concern–dummies, maybe.
I almost drowned once. You’re right that it takes more than ten seconds (especially if you’ve been in a caisson for ten or fifteen minutes) but right before I went under it was pretty peaceful. I imagine if I’d been trying to accomplish a mission to save someone else I’d have been able to tough it out past the panic and just let go.
My only quarrel is that he was in a caisson for at least ten minutes, and was breathing (necessarily) high-pressure air for that whole time. Since he made it down to the bottom on a single breath of air, he would definitely be able to make it back to the surface on a single breath of high-pressure air, assuming he could get through the porthole.
If Mikhail isn’t dead I’d be extremely surprised – he’d better be missing a hand and deaf if he comes back from the grave this time.
Well, he is British.
Oceanic Airlines was originally a part of Oceanic Slave Shipping which then became Oceanic Nigerian Drug Smuggling.
-Joe
Something that just occurred to me: When I heard that the season finale was a Jack-focused episode, I was thinking, what could we possibly not already know about Jack’s past? I guess I was right - they couldn’t find anything more of interest in Jack’s past, so we got Jack’s future.
I thought Ben did a pretty good job of summing up Jack’s past moments before he got the ass-beating.
And then he curls into a seizure of pain, as the nitrogen diffuses out of his blood, and he drowns. So hey, Desmond was right either way. 
Concerning Naomi. Now that we know she isn’t connected to Penny, and we know she is British, not Portuguese, I think it’s reasonable to assume that she and her crew attacked the listening station that Penny had set up. That’s the most reasonable explanation as to how she got the Portuguese copy of Catch 22, and probably explains how she got the coordinates to the island. If the Dharma folks could easily get back the island, one would think they would have done so a long time ago.
The plot thickens!
I assume word will now get out about the survivors since Penelope will presumably be recording her conversation with Charlie. Is there any reason in the world she wouldn’t share the shocking information with the rest of the world? Heads will surely roll when she does.
Unless she’s the Cobra!?! We still don’t know why she was in contact with an Other-occupied station.
I wouldn’t assume that. I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn that Penny got a visit form the Dharma folks shortly afterwards. Or maybe daddy put her over his knee and gave her a good spanking!
Is there any particularly compelling reason to believe that Naomi wasn’t lying about the finding of Flight 815 at the bottom of the sea? I assumed she said it because she was trying to increase the Losties’ sense of desperation about being rescued-- if everyone thinks they’re dead, no one will be looking for them, so her satellite phone might be their only chance to make contact and get home. Any good reason to think she might be doing otherwise?
Cooper had the same story about flight 815. Seems unlikely they’d both tell identical lies.