The rush to declare no terrorist action is most likely founded in protecting the Tourism industry and also 'loss of face'

The aircraft reportedly went back into service in mid-February 2002, some 3 months later. So even allowing for a bit of initial argy-bargying over the repair scheme and the admin, it sounds like some fairly extensive work needed to be done.

As a "layman" and certainly no aviation expert, is it possible that this was caused by the rear door failing with resulting catastrophic decompression as was the case with Tristars?

JAL 123...
 

It pays to revisit JAL 123:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123

The subsequent repair of the bulkhead did not conform to Boeing's approved repair methods. The Boeing technicians fixing the aircraft used two separate doubler plates, one with two rows of rivets and one with only one row when the procedure called for one continuous doubler plate with three rows of rivets to reinforce the damaged bulkhead.[24] The incorrect repair reduced the part's resistance to metal fatigue to about 70% compared to the correctly executed repair. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the one "doubler plate" which was specified for the job (the Federal Aviation Administration calls it a "splice plate" — essentially a patch) was cut into two pieces parallel to the stress crack it was intended to reinforce, "to make it fit".[25] This negated the effectiveness of one of the rows of rivets. During the investigation, Boeing calculated that this incorrect installation would fail after approximately 10,000 pressurizations; the aircraft accomplished 12,318 successful flights from the time that the faulty repair was made to when the crash happened.

China Airlines Flight 611 involved a Boeing 747 aircraft that crashed in Taiwan Strait in 2002 on a flight from Taipei to Hong Kong, also because of faulty maintenance done on damage caused by a tailstrike accident long before the crash date, finally causing the aircraft's structure to fail and disintegrate in flight.

British European Airways Flight 706 - Another crash caused by failure of the aft pressure bulkhead. The plane's horizontal stabilizer was blown off, resulting in a loss of pitch control. All 63 on board died.

That description doesn't fit the circumstances under which any TriStar losses occurred. Are you thinking of the DC-10, perhaps?

Does anyone know where the FDR/CVR are going for analysis?. Hoping the Egyptians aren't going to try hashing it out themselves.

I see some hydraulic leakage under portside rudder, 10 days ago, but also on this same cn 663 years ago.

http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviatio.../3/2725367.jpg

Took a look at other A321s, it's not very typical for the type. Probably a seal, valve / connection. Luckily both FDR's and the complete wreckage were found so w'll know soon enough.

Moscow (as per RT ticker y'day).

"I see some hydraulic leakage under portside rudder, 10 days ago, but also on this same cn 663 years ago. "

I saw that staining and thought it was from APU exhaust (as in running the APU into the wind and having exhaust blow back )

A lot of the outwards bending is visible on both sides of the rudder/rear fuselage wreckage. My post 173 has a link to a picture. I also postulated that pressure hull failure at the rear bulkhead could be the cause of flight control difficulties.

Interesting in the picture I have linked, you can see a line along which the horizontal stab failed along the right hand side... It's quite a deep gouge.

See here:

http://www.pprune.org/9164485-post173.html

Also both engine's hood shows oil traces.

China Airlines Flight 611 had also visible signs before it break up in flight.

The last update from the FCO is dated 15 October 2015. For map of the areas affected see:

https://assets.digital.cabinet-offic...Egypt_jpeg.jpg

Al Arsih is within the red " Advice against all travel " area on the map.

What is not known is whether there were any hostilities in this red zone.

I looked at a lot of other 321s and do not see the hydraulic traces under the rudder. Its clearly visible on this recent picture. Either bad cleaning or a persistant leakage.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/31/airbus-a320-safety-record-in-spotlight-after-egypt-plane-crash#img-1

Beeb are reporting that the plane broke up in mid air Sinai plane crash: Russian aircraft 'broke up in mid air' - BBC News

Even a very major hydraulic leak doesn't make an airliner fall out of the sky

Al Jazeera reporting break up at high altitude.
Bodies found 8 miles from other wreckage

Seems most likely there are two possible causes:

1) midair breakup due to a mechanical fault. Who knows? It's all speculation here. We have to wait till the black box reports are done. No one seems to know why the captain was reputedly concerned about the plane condition.

2) insider with a bomb due to poor security. Egyptian authorities would be keen to play this down. But from the pax list this seems unlikely, as they were all Russian, unless something was planted in the cargo, so it can't be completey ruled out.

However this is just speculation again. This thread is just full of it.

re high alt breakup
 

Since it is now reported that bodies are being found up to 8 miles from wreckage, a high alt breakup is quite likely

As to possible reasons- I note that the upper part of tail in front of pressure bulkhead is a very clean break along a panel- frame join. I believe this infers a tensile type break on the upper half ( tail cone- bulkhead generally bending DOWN assuming level - upright flight for reference ).

This could infer a major change in elevator position developing enough force to tear the tail off. Perhaps a total control servo - cable- failure or hard over ? :confused:


Thus we must simply wait till at least a preliminary readout from FDR and CVR is public.

Stuff happens !!:ugh:

Black boxes are not the key and end-all. Much can be learned by examination of the wreckage.

We need to stop relying on black boxes to tell-all ... they don't