How come "(...) Days after the failed landing, the Indian Space Research Organization said it had located the lander, but hadn’t been able to establish communication." but the lander was in pieces spanning several kilometers?
Perhaps there was some kind of transponder that didn’t break?
Because these press releases were political at best. No-one in the space industry was believing them: unrealistic, playing on the words and not going through proper channels.
India only admitted that the lander crashed a week ago [0]. There seems to be a lot of political standing riding on these missions.
It is amazing what publicly available info can achieve. Some random interested person had the means, through this data, to apply his skills and come up with this remarkable find.
I am looking at the comparison gif NASA shared and having a hard time finding much different. Shouldn't we expect to see the debris in the after pic? Or is it too small to notice in this?:
About 1/3 of the way up from the bottom and slightly to the right, you'll see a small dark trail and a black dot in the top right of a crater. That seems to be the largest noticeable piece. That spot is about 2x4 pixels in size, which is about 1 1/2 by 3 meters compared to the scale in the picture. That's roughly the size of the craft so it's most likely the main portion of it.
Actually a person found it by carefully examine satellite images.