I'd go with a combination of 1. and 3. Obviously, you'd need quite some budget to pay an analytics team to find a plane out in the ocean. You can't just conjur

I'd go with a combination of 1. and 3. Obviously, you'd need quite some budget to pay an analytics team to find a plane out in the ocean. You can't just conjure the money out of thin air. And if you go to your superiors and ask them for the money and have to admit it will disclose a lot of your capabilities to foreign powers, you'll likely simply get a resounding "NO". After all, it was never the question of rescuing living people with MH370. Did you notice how the US kept sat images and phone recordings extremely close to their chest in the case of MH17? I am pretty sure they have a lot more intelligence on that thing than they are willing to admit - they not having constant surveillance over a battle field in Europe would be extremely negligent.