The plane passed back over land, so the absence of cellphone contact from passengers seems to rule out this idea, unless the plane was depressurized and everyone, or almost everyone, became unconscious quite quickly.
I'm thinking that some people would attempt to send text messages, which would be queued and automatically sent when the phone was in range of a tower again.
It only needs one person to do this, out of hundreds aboard, to give us a clue what happened. Nothing has been reported. If anyone had received a message, we should have heard about it.
The phones will ping just by being in range, you dont need to queue a message. Nothing in your argument makes (say) hijacking more likely than mechanical issues.
>The phones will ping just by being in range, you dont need to queue a message.
Yes, that's true, but it is not so useful, because it would not add much information to what we already know. A message from a passenger would give some clues about what happened.
>Nothing in your argument makes (say) hijacking more likely than mechanical issues.
In the absence of more evidence, I prefer the simplest theory.
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The simplest possible hijacking theory relies on one event:
1. A rogue pilot, acting alone, incapacitates the other pilot, disables the transponder, and incapacitates the passengers and crew by depressurizing the plane.
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The malfunction theory relies on an event that has all the following complex series of effects:
1 disables all communications ability suddenly
2 deactivates the transponder, and then disables a data transmitter system a few minutes later, after the plane has begun to turn
3 incapacitates most of the passengers and pilots swiftly, but without incapacitating everyone aboard
4 somehow prevents the person(s) in control of the plane from using a mobile phone when they are over land
Both theories suffer from the issue that a passenger or crew could have attempted to send a text message before they were incapacitated, which would have been transmitted when the plane passed over land, but apparently nobody did this. Passengers only have a few minutes of emergency oxygen, but crew have more, I think.
> Yes, that's true, but it is not so useful, because it would not add much information to what we already know.
It might add plenty of information. It tells us the plane did not pass near a cell phone tower at all which at minimum rules out all the "plane landed safely at x/y/z" theories. Even if it passes over land, many of those are weaker signals and not going to pick up at all so we can rule out any argument based on whether people tried to send text messages or not.
> The simplest possible hijacking theory relies on one event:
Wait so in one case you count 4 things as "one event" and in the other case you count 4 things as a "complex series of effects"?
I honestly don't see the difference: sure one pilot could have done everything. There are also single things that can happen to a plane that could generate all those effects. I don't claim that is more likely than a hijacking or suicidal pilot but it seems about as reasonable as either.
I do think the hijacking and pilot suicide angles have serious issues with the facts that people tend to hand wave away.
Like Helios 522