From the Aviation Herald:

On May 20th 2016 The Aviation Herald received information from three independent channels, that ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) messages with following content were received from the aircraft:

00:26Z 3044 ANTI ICE R WINDOW
00:26Z 561200 R SLIDING WINDOW SENSOR
00:26Z 2600 SMOKE LAVATORY SMOKE
00:27Z 2600 AVIONICS SMOKE
00:28Z 561100 R FIXED WINDOW SENSOR
00:29Z 2200 AUTO FLT FCU 2 FAULT
00:29Z 2700 F/CTL SEC 3 FAULT
no further ACARS messages were received

Looks like things were going downhill quickly.

Uncontrolled cockpit fire, then?

Could have been an electrical fire somewhere in the airplane. In a fly-by-wire jet, that's a bad thing.

Still, 3 minutes is a long time for an incendiary device. I'm beginning to think everyone jumped the gun on declaring it a terrorist act. Not improbable, but starting to lean the other way.

....or....

Don't jump the gun on the ACARS messages, either.

What exactly are the faults and messages you would get if a small bomb put a hole in the airplane, and things went downhill?

Wires cut to sensors; fogging due to decompression....

Point is, no one knows.

The US government leans towards terrorism, according to one report.

It could be either...or neither.

Usually some psychopathic terrorist group almost immediately (and generally accurately) claims responsibility for their handiwork. Not one group has boasted about this one.

If I had to put money down, I'd wager on a MX failure.

Within hours Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Miles O'Brien and Richard Quest all said terrorism.

Must be terrorism.

It's not really that long of a time period. It will take a while. I would have thought about 5 minutes, but I guess they are saying 3.

Any explosive device will yield some varying results depending on the net explosive weight of the device, amount of flammable materials as opposed to blast, and the amount and type of smoke produced. Also, the various normal routes of airflow and abnormal routes due to aircraft damage and system degradation will make certain compartments more smokey than others.

The device, If it was one could have been small enough to produce critical system damage and an ever widening hole in the fuselage. While not big enough to blow it out of the sky, it may have been big enough to cripple it and the sustained aerodynamic loads and sheer speed of the plane in flight could have ripped it apart over a period of a few minutes.

the smoke produced would have likely been both localized initially and spread via ventilation, but dissipated quickly after depressurization.

I still lean towards a device. Small, yet powerful. Something plastique perhaps. These blasts essentially yield two blasts in one. One outward blast of explosive gasses and one inward.

My biggest fear is that the bad guys will start smuggling this stuff in small amounts within their body cavity, IE, their butt-hole and remove it in the lav and assemble it in there during the flight. it's malleable, flexible, and stable. Probably all you need is enough to fit inside a good sized cigar to do the job.

We are all guessing, of course, but what do you make of the ACARS messages about the copilot`s window?