Originally Posted by
MTOW
The terror organisations recognise that the sure way to win the current war they're waging against the West is to use the Ronald Reagan ploy of making the war simply too expensive for the other side to wage. If this turns out to be a terroist attack, it's clever, particularly if it can be repeated.
Someone, be it a terrorist who forced his way into the cockpit or a pilot who has been recruited or forced to co-operate with the terrorists, had to have enough knowledge of the 777 to know which nav and comm. functions to disable - and in a very short time - to cause it to disappear (in an electronic sense) in a matter of seconds. After that, it's just a question of getting the aircraft a long way away from the commonsense search area before ditching it or flying it deliberately into the sea to destroy it. (When your foot soldiers are willing to die for the cause, the possibilities that can be employed are endless.)
The effect of two or three similar disappearances will be huge. The incredible expense, both to governments and airlines, in just trying to find the missing hull, will eventually become crippling; the drop off in passengers, as airline travel becomes something less than 100% safe in the public's perception, will hurt the airlines' bottom line; the increased security measures will make airline travel an even more painful experience than it has become since 2001.
All will end up making travel very, very expensive, which means the bad guys will have won, for without easy and cheap air travel, Western society will not be what it has become over the last fifty years.
Or of course self powered uploads of FDR/CVR/CvideoR with a GPS position and Timestamp direct to 'the cloud' could be added at relatively little cost compared to the cost of almost a shutdown of transoceanic flight. As I posted earlier - this has gone beyond concerns about unethical management wanting to watch you pick your nose in the cockpit. Had there been a record to the cloud system on this aircraft there would be closure for the several hundred relatives, the reason for the aircraft going down could well be known as it would have been found already.