Originally Posted by
Ftrooppilot
Assume for a minute:
1. A Hijacking / suicide mission was well planned / executed.
2. It was a test .
3. No claim of responsibility would be made.
4. The airplane should be difficult if not impossible to find.
5. The cause and methods used would be near impossible to detect.
6. If undetected, the cause and methods could be used again.
Think lethal chemical or gas release in the cabin while wearing a protective mask. Then fly to remote location (end of fuel).
Gas/Chemical is hard to use...especially when you don't control the environment, ie the pilots can dump the cabin and breath O2.
Few chemicals would incapacitate everyone without warning before O2 masks could be donned or radio calls could be made.
Also would be hard to smuggle sufficient quantities and delivery mechanism onboard. Gas is not a good assault weapon, it's more of a battlefield shaping tool.
Not impossible but way harder than most terrorist ops go in for. Also I seriously doubt they'd do a dry run and bring down a plane just to see if they could...that would draw way too much attention. Also it's a muslim, not western, plane. The usual bad guys have really moved away from collateral damage to their fellow muslims (due to popular backlash).