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Why do people instantly leap to the conclusion that it's a bomb? The vast majority of plane crashes that occur (including the other Egypt Air crash 17 years ago) are caused by other factors
Because they're emotionally vested in it being a bomb. The want it to be a bomb. They will be profoundly disappointed if it is not a bomb.
It doesn't appear to be a bomb - at least one that worked properly. The smoke alerts suggest a fire, though this could conceivably be a bomb that didn't work as intended. I'm reminded of the American Airlines flight the Unabomber tried to blow up in 1979. The bomb fizzled, the plane filled with smoke, and then made an emergency landing.
It's also possible that it was an intentional incendiary device, though the timing is odd. The flight was late in departing, and the crash took place right around the time the originally-scheduled flight should have been landing. It would not be logical to time an attack for this point in flight. On the other hand, both the 'shoe bomber' and the 'underwear bomber' tried to carry out their attacks on aircraft during the approach phase of flight, so you never know.
It is possibly terrorism. We simply do not have all the facts yet. Fortunately, the black boxes have been located and should be recovered soon. But given what we know, the bulk of the data tends to point towards mechanical failure and/or human error (possibly in maintenance of wiring, for example) leading to a fire (thus the smoke alerts). EgyptAir is declaring that it's likely terrorism. Of course, they want it to be terrorism, rather that the fault of their pilots or their mechanics. They have a vested interest in the fault laying with security at some foreign airport in France or Tunisia or Eritrea.
All the "It's terrorism!" folks must think EgyptAir is the most competent airline in history ... ... because they've completely ruled out any possible error on the part of the airline's employees.
One of the first indicators of faulty manufacture woud be the Airbus share price, to which I linked in an earlier comment here
And one of the last, the 'grounding' of the A─320-type – if that were to be decreed
Capt John Cox, a Fellow at the London-based Royal Aeronautical Society, told me the known facts about what happened on the missing EgyptAir flight MS804 were confusing.
If the timings we have are right (they are still not officially confirmed), there were three minutes of smoke and heat warnings, followed by four minutes of powered flight without warnings, followed by a two minute fall.
"For a fire, that's a very short period of time. For an explosive event, like a bomb, that's a very long period of time," he says.
"It's got me and many other experts scratching their heads. There is an answer, but it's not clear yet."
But can we ascertain whether there was cargo in this plane? I have heard a rumour that there wasn't
Another thing – even though Egypt is deploying the equivalent of its Pingfinder-Admiral to detect the flight-recorders, I wonder at whether there's enough incentive to find the things
Putting aside the politics of it, I wonder if people "want" it to be a bomb because that is less random and scary in terms of flying in general? Particularly for domestic flights or even international flights where the plane is never in locations where it's theoretically accessible to bad actors in a way that is far less likely in more developed countries with more stringent security measures.
Of course you can't really put aside the politics of it, but I still think that wanting to maintain a "that could never happen on a plane that I'll be on" attitude is a factor, and that's not something you can say as much if it was a mechanical problem.
Putting aside the politics of it, I wonder if people "want" it to be a bomb because that is less random and scary in terms of flying in general? Particularly for domestic flights or even international flights where the plane is never in locations where it's theoretically accessible to bad actors in a way that is far less likely in more developed countries with more stringent security measures.
Maybe. I know that random terrorism in one out of millions of flights it is less distressing to me than the realization that, despite 50 years of jet airliner engineering, a short in the electrical system could cause a fire that takes out all the control systems so fast that the pilots cannot take corrective actions or call mayday.
Putting aside the politics of it, I wonder if people "want" it to be a bomb because that is less random and scary in terms of flying in general? Particularly for domestic flights or even international flights where the plane is never in locations where it's theoretically accessible to bad actors in a way that is far less likely in more developed countries with more stringent security measures.
Of course you can't really put aside the politics of it, but I still think that wanting to maintain a "that could never happen on a plane that I'll be on" attitude is a factor, and that's not something you can say as much if it was a mechanical problem.
You can rule out the Egyptian government as a reputable source of information. They claimed the Metrojet crash was due to mechanical problems with the plane and therefore the responsibility of the Russian charter jet company. In the case of the Egyptair crash, before there's any information, they claim it was terrorism which would imply French security was breached. Anything to push the responsibility for a crash onto someone else.
The US claims that their spy satellites captured an explosive flash in the vicinity of the crash at the time of the crash has also been debunked in later news articles.
"However, the head of the government's forensic agency later Tuesday dismissed as speculation all media reports about human remains from the crash indicating an explosion.
"Whatever has been published is baseless and mere assumptions," Hisham Abdel-Hamid told Egypt's state MENA news agency.
A statement from the government's investigative committee also warned media outlets to be cautious about what is published "to avoid chaos and spreading false rumors and damaging the state's high interests and national security."
The Egyptian expert told the AP that all 80 pieces that have been brought to Cairo so far are very small. "There isn't even a whole body part, like an arm or a head," said the official, adding that one piece was the left part of a head.
He said the body parts are "so tiny" and that at least one piece of a human arm has signs of burns — an indication it might have "belonged to a passenger sitting next to the explosion."
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