I just want to chip in with what I hope is clear cut thinking. There seems to be a lot of fingerwaving and gaggling going on about this crash, which is I suppose understandable given the current political circumstances, but I think the collective tendency to turn it into a conspiracy theory is a bit over the top.
In particular, I'm not sure I agree with the suggestion that the Egyptian authorities are hell bent on covering anything up here. After all, which is worse for their tourism industry - falling victim to a terrorism incident; or being slung with the stigma of packing visiting tourists like sardines into dangerous aircraft?
My apologies if that question sounds at all fecetious, but either way they will have blood on their hands in that respect. In fact one could go as far as to suggest that an incident of terrorism would be perceived as an unfortunate part of the bigger picture, wheras a dodgy plane is a country that doesn't take its visitors' safety seriuosly enough. My point being that the latter is hardly a cover up for the former.
I'm not trying to defend the Egyptian officials here, I just think that this part of the discussion is getting unduly distorted. They are after all politicians and we can't really expect anything less from politicians than for them to try to 'play it down' until the facts are in.
Sifting through the eight pages of speculation on this thread there are only really a few things that emerge as facts:
a) the plane crashed
b) the aircraft and its operators where officially known to be problematic (and unofficially there is much to corroberate this).
c) the authorities were aware of the situation, but too slow in resolving it.
So, it's not exactly ludicrous to suspect at this stage that the event was an accident. Unless any other information emerges that proves otherwise, I think I would be able to accept that as the most plausible explaination. Tragic nonetheless. My condolences are with the families of those lost.