Usually that means a bomb. Unless some genius figured out a way to transmit a virus into the Airbus computer system to confuse it and cause massive failures in flight.
I pray to God not.
It's certainly possible. But I would think that an intentional bombing isn't going to be left waiting until it had already been in flight for a few hours. One would think it would tend to be set off early in the flight, bringing it down over land instead of out in the middle of the ocean. But of course, lots of things are possible.
It would also tend, I think, to just be a single abrupt event... then nothing follows... not a string of cascading system failures. This suggests to me that the cause was something other than a bomb.
There are a whole bunch of ways that aircraft break apart in flight in severe weather.
Take it from a flight instructor.
“Usually that means a bomb.”
No, it doesn’t. Knock off the melodrama.
Thunderstorms contain all kinds of hazards to aircraft and can rip one apart like a buzzsaw going through a tin can.
“Usually that means a bomb.”
Usually, but not always. T-storms can tear apart a jet as fast as a terrorist event.
“Usually that means a bomb. Unless some genius figured out a way to transmit a virus into the Airbus computer system to confuse it and cause massive failures in flight.”
How long did it take the authorities to determine the Lockerbie crash was caused by a bomb? Seems like they figured it out pretty quickly, but then again they had an actual crash site to analyze.