[Perdogg]

Interesting theory, however you are missing three points

1) Why

2) Who

3) Isn't the point of terrorism to “terrorize”, not to keep people in suspense as to why a plane went down?

[Excellence]

Well, if someone were to claim the attack as their own handiwork, there is still plausible deniablity because there has been only one downed plane. So, perhaps, more than one needs to be brought down to establish plausibility, then the claim for resposiblilty could be made. At this point, though, I would have to go with the idea that if this was a deliberate act, why has no one claimed responsibility? Personally, I think the Airbus has bugs. Major bugs. Major stay the hell off of them bugs.

[Paladin2]

From Wiki-

Flight 447: airframe hr ~18,500. 4-yr old.

Automated messages: "The twelve warning messages with the same time code indicate that the autopilot and auto-thrust system had disengaged, that the rudder travel limit was removed.....

Flight 587's plane (A300 short widebody) was 14 yr old. It crashed allegedly due to structural failure during "normal" turbulence.

[mkjessup]

Among the many, many comment threads on various news sites, I could not help but snicker if only slightly at one comment; “We can be sure that the Air France stewardesses were snotty right to the very end.”

[bgill]

I’ve wondered the same and it has been speculated... just not in the media.

As for why no one has taken credit for it - why must anyone take credit? There was a bomb threat right before but no one checked the onboard computer system for any tampering of programs. It could very well be a dry run of what will and won’t normally be inspected. The guy could now be laughing his head off because no one bothered to check for a software bomb.

It could also have been that someone messed the some wiring. An intentionally loose or frayed or possible re-directing the wiring could cause a chain reaction of systems shutting down and no one would be the wiser. It wouldn’t matter if it were lost at sea or crashed on land. It would take months to make a determination and still it would be speculation. Of course a loose wire could be nothing more than a loose wire. Stuff happens.

[spetznaz]

I am not saying that is what happened, but it is something that could happen. Enough to ensure that the upcoming 787 Dreamliner has both firewalls and airwalls between the core system and what passengers have access to, just in case some 'enterprising' passenger (be it run of the mill hacker, or someone with more nefarious objectives) decides to try and mess up some operating aspect of the aircraft. As for Jihadis, the typical 'Allah worshiping suicide bomber type' is merely a mule ...there are some who are Western educated (e.g. the stories last year of British doctors who were Islamist), and who may have specialized skills in technology. As planes become smarter, and fly by wire permeates the entire industry, it is only a matter of time before terrorists start sneaking in brains rather than bombs.

Imagine the impact of 15 planes going down in a single day over the Atlantic?

[Jeffrey_D.]

It worked for Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum in “Independence Day”

[mad_as_he$$]

My guess would be a bomb that started a cascade of failures but did not do enough immediate damage to bring the plane down. Second would be lousy French programming. Airbus has had several crashes due to “unforeseen” circumstances where the computers did EXACTLY the wrong thing and caused the crash. there has even been situations where the flight control system computers voted and the main system picked the minority vote for action to take - - very bad deal.

[Polynikes]

Interesting theory. It certainly could be, but I lean more to an Occam's Razor solution. Airbus does have a history software troubles apparently because of incompatible software used at various manufacturing sites. If more planes start to drop then terrorism becomes more likely
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2006/gb20061005_846432.htm

[Greysard]

Put simply, what if a virus or some other method of disrupting the software of the plane was planted to go off at a certain time which would, system by system, shut down the computer operation of the plane up to and including communications?

I'm not an expert on Airbus, but I know something about programming. First of all, we are talking about embedded systems and not about a PC on someone's desk. These embedded systems are just metal boxes with lots of weird connectors on them, and the connectors are usually hidden. To plant a virus into one of those boxes you need:

1. Figure out what OS the box is running. This is not easy because there are many RTOSes and none of them tell you what they are. Your car's engine controller probably runs an RTOS, do you know what it is?
2. Write a virus for that OS. This is hard because RTOSes often do not allow external software to be inserted. They are compiled and statically linked into an "image", and that image is the smallest unit of code upload. To make a virus you need to have access to source components of *everything* on that box, plus you need the development tools and setup that was used to build this particular image. You'd need to work for the box manufacturer to do that.
3. Insert a virus into the box. As I mentioned, you'd need to wipe the box clean and upload your own image. You need special tools for that. Note that boxes may check cryptographic signatures on images, and refuse to run if the signature doesn't match; but again if you are working for the box maker then it's doable.

But that's one box. There are many, made by different companies. You need a unique virus for each of them. And you'd need to test the whole thing on the lab bench before it makes any sense to do a test run on an airplane. It would take an amazing level of coordination to plant highly educated terrorists into key positions at all those companies. I don't think terrorists are that patient, and they can think of easier ways to do the same. I read about one interesting and almost undetectable method in a book (the Gap series, here).

Many people have access to the onboard computer, I would guess, for upgrades, software checks, etc.

Just like you have "access" to computers that run your car. You may see and touch the metal box, but without specialized tools and skills you can't do much to them. Besides, if the team of Air France mechanics is compromised then the terrorist doesn't need a computer to bring an airplane down.

Myself, I know only that there was a major failure on the airplane, maybe several, and it somehow prevented pilots from contacting the ground (but the automatic notifications continued.) To me the silence is telling because however busy the pilots were, they surely at least could hold the radio button down. The sequence is fairly lengthy (minutes,) so someone would have found time to call and report mayday. It's not like reporting an imminent crash is somehow optional. If the pilots reported nothing it's because they couldn't.

One possibility is that pilots were incapacitated somehow, and when the turbulence disconnected the autopilot (which is normal) there was nobody alive to take control. Then the airplane was just falling randomly, exceeding all its structural limits in the process and tearing its wings off.