At the way beginning the narrorator says these people got lost somewhere in the South Pacific. Is that a sure thing? Did we actually know this? Are they definitely somewhere in the South Pacific?

They left Australia, didn't fly for long enough to leave that general region (south pacific), did they?

Well...here's what the Pilot had to say about their location from the pilot episode:

PILOT: 6 hours in. Our radio went out, no one could see us. We turned back to land in Fiji, by the time we hit turbulence we were 1000 miles off course. They're looking for us in the wrong place.

Then, there's this exchange from Tabula Rasa:

SAYID:Two days ago we take off from Sydney. We fly along the same north east route every commercial airliner bound for Los Angeles does. Now the pilot, he said he lost communication with the ground, correct?
KATE: Yeah, 6 hours in. He turned around and headed for Fiji.
SAYID: So, we changed course. Regrettably, no one knew we changed course. The turbulence hit. We know the rest. [Sayid puts the torch's fire out.]
KATE: The pilot said we were over a thousand miles off course.

And Rousseau says in Solitary:

DANIELLE: Our vessel was 3 days out of Tahiti when our instruments malfunctioned. It was night, a storm, the sounds. The ship slammed into rocks, ran aground, the hull breached beyond repair. So, we made camp, dug out this temporary shelter.

That's all I got...But I'm no geography nut...Sounds like it could be the South Pacific...And...Why would TPTB have the narrator lie?

Ator seems to be dead on. Can't form a better hypothesis than that.

All very valid points as to the location of the island, but that is what makes this show so great, conflicting information. Everything I am about to say has been brought up on other threads I just don't remember where, if you do a search I'm sure you'll find alot more info. Mr. Eko's Nigerian drug plane seems alittle out of place in the South Pacific. That was a fairly small plane, don't think it had the range to get to the South Pacific on one tank of gas. Daylight discrepancy: If I remember correctly the filght left Sydney at 2:55 p.m. local time. Which if they flew for 6 hours would put the time at 8:55 p.m. in Sydney when they made there turn for Fiji. Now Fiji is 2 hours ahead of Sydney which would put the time at 10:55 p.m. in Fiji when the flight made the turn for Fiji. This is why I believe it should have been dark when Flight 815 crashed on the island and not looking like the middle of the afternoon, if they indeed did crash in the South Pacific. Do with this information what you will. Man I didn't plan on typing that much!

Well if you look at a world clock you will see that depending on where they land they are going against the sun (assuming they where flying east) so as Australia was dark the south pacific was still very much in the sun.

It is 12:30 PM as I write this in Southern California (Monday) and in Australia right now it is 5AM Tues.and dark, in Honolulu it is 9:30 AM Mon. so going from Australia to LA you get a sever loss of time.

So leaving Sydney at 2PM and 6 hours in you are probably close to being in the South Pacific if you hed north or south the time is still basically the same just the latitude changes so 8PM Sydney is roughly 12:30PM the next day in the So. Pac. which makes the crash happening in the middle of the day perfectly reasonable.

If you cross the international date line traveling east depending on the time of day it will either be the same day as when you left, or it will be a day earlier. Also follow this link http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc and do the conversion using Sept. 22nd 2004 @ 8:55 p.m. in Sydney Australia to Pacific/Pitcairn. The Pitcairn Islands are pretty much the furthest islands that are charted in the So. Pac east of Australia. The conversion will come out as being 2:55 a.m. on Sept. 22nd 2004. If they were traveling in the general direction of going to Los Angeles and crashed anywhere from 6-10 hours after they took off it should have been dark, or nearly dawn.

I think that we would be safe if granting the writers poetic license on the time of day of the crash. Remember, this was an expensive pilot to film in the first place, so a night shoot was an added expense that they probably couldn't afford.

I think that we would be safe if granting the writers poetic license on the time of day of the crash. Remember, this was an expensive pilot to film in the first place, so a night shoot was an added expense that they probably couldn't afford.

In movies... often 'night' shoots are done during the day, with the use of filters.... for example, in The Sum of All Fears, when the aircraft carrier was attacked, it was filmed in the middle of the day, but appeared in the movie in the middle of the night.

Couldn't the pilot have meant six hours out of la? but then they wouldn't have been heading for fiji and more like hawaii. south pacific? but not sure I am thinking clearly. If that were true and they were six hours out of LA ( around a 13 hour flight) would make it about 5:00 a.m. in la and closer to south pacific area.

I'm pretty sure it's been confirmed that 815 crashed somewhere in the South Pacific, possibly the Society Islands or the Marshall Islands. But (in reference to the Nigerian plane) the "island" might not be in the South Pacific anymore. We've theorized that it's not really an island at all and that it moves. ;)