Originally Posted by Wild Goose
Somewhat unusual that
...
3) Access to the toilets was only restricted after the last fire was set.
That's a bit like saying it's unusual that you found your missing keys the last place you looked.
According to The Australian newspaper,
"lighters and matches were confiscated in Jakarta before passengers were let back on the flight"
Presumably the aircraft was also searched for lighters and matches, but even so, it seems quite extraordinary that in the face of clear evidence that an actual (not merely potential) arsonist with a faulty or absent sense of self preservation was amongst the passengers, the flight continued with the culprit(s) aboard.
You could argue there was little else they could do but continue on, since they were unable to identify the culprit(s), but this seems to fly in the face of the disruption routinely caused by
minor security breaches (Melbourne Airport's spokeswoman's phrase, not mine) at airports with no evidence at all of any malicious intent.
Seriously, it's OK to strand thousands for a few hours because someone turned their back on a door for 30 seconds, but it's not OK to strand several hundred people when you KNOW one of them has made several attempts to set fire to a long haul aircraft which is about to fly hours from land, because you don't know which one it was?