Originally Posted by
Lonewolf_50
Search to take decades?
On whose dime?
This question is based on the practical matter of effort versus benefit. If the estimation is that the aircraft was in control and that a human agent was involved, is it really necessary to find the aircraft to arrive at some means of preventing such incidents in the future?
At some point, when dealing with the human mind, you can't engineer a "solution" to how people think and behave.
Looking for various loopholes that may have been exploited does not IMO require finding the aircraft on the ocean floor.
There is a major issue here, that professional pilots need to take note of. That is the level of trust that people feel that they can put in the flight crew that have locked themselves away in the cockpit. This is the real reason for the need to find the airframe.
As we see here immediate offense taken at suggestions that the pilot may be the one that 'hijacked' the aircraft (and for the same reason this may be modded out). This immediate reaction is the reason that no FOQA or DFDR is streamed and that no CVR data is streamed from the cockpit. It is also the reason that video recordings are not made and streamed.
IFF this was a pilot initiated incident then I suspect that legislative and insurance company action will be taken to enforce such data streaming.
IFF it was not pilot initiated then perhaps trust can remain in pilots.
Taking offense at the suggestions and 'turning a blind eye' to the problem will not make it go away. The current mood is that it was pilot initiated. Without finding the wreckage and the recorders and numerous personal cell phones with recordings that mood will steadily swing toward less trust being given to pilots, and eventual enforcement of streamed recordings.
It is in everyone's interests that the wreckage is found and the reason for what happened is discovered.