eaglefly

Maybe, but how has the international (non US) airline pilot community handled abnormal (and even normal a'la the SFO 777 ricochet) situations over the last few years ?

A LOT of pilot error out there. Of course, if the cockpit was filled with smoke and even possibly the O2 was compromised, it could have been just a bleak situation like Swissair or Valuejet.

Winston

I'm thinking this.

Regardless of differences in training, culture, politics, etc., spare a moment's thought for the presumably competent and professional crew who were just overwhelmed by fate.

I'm sure their last moments were spent exactly as ours would be: doing everything they could to live.

eaglefly

Sure, it could very well be a catastrophic situation, but my assertions about the International non U.S. carriers issues are valid. European carriers are well established, but many other global markets are in a state of rapid expansion and that means less experienced crews. The Egypt crew included a 6500 captain and a 2100 hour F/O and that's more akin to a regional crew here in the U.S. Add to that some of the cultural issues and already questionable operating practices like the Rostov crew's schedule and its managements scheduling philosophies or recent Indonesia operating practices as examples and the accident rate among these segments of global commercial aviation is presently unacceptable IMO, not unlike the accident rate here in the U.S. in past decades. This crew too was also operating deep in the circadian low at the time on an all-nighter.

badflaps

Way, way too much wire control for me.

F4E Mx

How can you certify an airplane if a fire in the electronics bay makes it uncontrollable?

Adlerdriver

So, an airplane is supposed to be certified to fly around with a fire in the electronics bay? If a fire is uncontrollable anywhere on the airplane, all the certification regulations in the world aren't going to keep it flying. ValuJet 592, Swissair 111, UPS 6, Asiana 991 come to mind.

F4E Mx

Obviously if you have a mechanical flight control system you could shut off all electrical, depressurize, and head lower. Depressurizing at altitude with the electronics shut down might be enough to extinguish the fire. Hard to shut down the electronics, thought, if they ARE the flight control system.

Yoda2

A designer/engineer cannot reasonably account for every possibility. There is always an Achilles heal in any design, many times multiple weak links. Additionally it is not always as simple as shutting down some systems and doing the high dive. Also, plenty of catastrophic events that have brought down plenty of aircraft with mechanical flight controls. In the big picture, airframe manufacturers, insurance underwriters, Etc. all know there will be X amount of incidents and hull losses before an aircraft is even built. However unfortunate, for the most part, it is all expected and designed into the "system". At some point everything comes down to money...

cardiomd

and physics / current physical imitations. I'm always surprised that people think there will be any materials that can survive most combustion temperatures and energies. Even the steel that forms buildings can at best give you survival times until collapse, e.g. WTC in 2001.

I fear that another (obvious) attack vector was exploited, but we will find out quite soon. But, keep scanning our shoes, TSA. I hope there is no domestic over-reaction if it was intentional.

rickair7777

Terrorism seems less likely now with no plausible bad actors taking credit. Also the "main stream" terror groups have shifted away from targeting, or appearing to target, fellow muslims. There are certainly people who have axes to grind with Egypt (including AQ #1), but targeting random citizens of a muslim nation seems unlikely. If they got through security at CDG, they might have been able to take a different carrier, although they may have been trying to avoid certain no-fly lists or watch lists.

Although this could have been a full-mission-profile proof of concept, and they're waiting to take credit until they go "mass production".