Originally Posted by
212man
It’s a Dash 8, on an IFR flight plan - of course the POB are known. It’s not some Sunday afternoon VFR PPL in a Cessna 152.
That information may be known, but it’s academic. Until some radio or visual contact is made nobody has any idea what’s going on aboard the aircraft, and the interceptors have to possess the means to destroy it if ordered. It’s not a game.