Originally posted by mcjensen
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However one variable that is highly variable is human nature. The most expert people from the US NTSB apparently believe that a plane full of people sat idly by as a deranged captain flew it into the deepest part of the Indian Ocean. I don't understand that reasoning, as there is no precedent for it. The closest that I know of comes from fiction -- D.O. Guerrero in Arthur Hailey's seminal novel "Airport", a bankrupt and suicidal man who intended to blow up the airliner he was on in the deepest part of the Atlantic ocean, so that his wife could collect the flight life insurance, which was common back then. Even in fiction, it didn't work out.
When it comes to human nature, I can't accept that a plane full of people just sat in their seats passively, awaiting their death as a hijacker flew the plane out over the deepest ocean. Nor can I accept any scenario that is ignorant of the fact that the flight crew does have emergency breathing equipment for the express purpose of staying alive and awake long enough to reach safe harbor. AFAIK switching to an alternate FMS program instead of reaching for the oxygen mask is NOT an approved procedure! That's not to say that those things didn't happen; it will require a lot more evidence to prove definitively that that is what happened.
So the people who are shouting "pilots are always heroes" have zero factual basis and way too much prejudice to be listened to. It's a very slim possibility that the course change could have been made innocently, but it would still be an indictment of the flight crew -- "pilot error". Air piracy of some sort is still the most likely scenario, and more importantly, the only one that doesn't require ridiculous leaps of faith.
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