On Sun, 09 Mar 2014 12:35:07 -0400, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:


I was just reading that authorities have determined that the passports
used by at least two of the passengers were stolen. Strongly raises the
possibility of a terrorist or other unlawful event and not necessarily a
failure of the airplane or it's systems.

Unless it was a catastrophic explosion of some sort, I don't see why the pilot couldn't have
reported a problem over the radio - unless there was some other kind of interference, i.e., human.