I'm just saying', but... for now, keep an open mind on this one. There is indication, from some maintenance messages transmitted by the aircraft before it went off course, that there was a fire on board in or near the cockpit. The cause could be terrorism (e.g., a terrorist ignited an incendiary device in the galley or forward lav). It could have been due to a smoker discarding a cigarette in the lav's trash bin. (You'd be surprised how often this caused fires back in the days when nearly all airlines permitted smoking on board.) Or it could have been an electrical fault.

There were some other fault messages, but right now most observers are assuming that those were the result of the fire, rather than the cause of it. We probably won't know more until the flight recorders are recovered. Since they are at the bottom of the Mediterranean, in an area of 3000-4000m depth, they probably won't be found right away. But I saw some words last weekend from someone from a commercial diving company that I'm familiar with, and he seems pretty confident that dive robots will find them eventually.

I don't believe this was terrorism.

Why? Because terrorism, by definition, is an attack intended to scare a broader audience into complying with demands made by the attacker(s). If this had been a terrorist attack, the bad guys would have made an immediate public statement, admitting blame and making their demands (unless they were a group that has already published a set of demands).

There's not much point, even from bad guys' point of view, in scaring the public if they don't tell the public what they want us to do.

Now maybe they did try to publish such a statement and were successfully silenced. But in that case we've got somebody on "our" side taking prisoners and holding them incommunicado, which scares me more than blowing up a plane does.

But my "least hypothesis" is a mechanical or electrical failure in the plane. The orange box should tell us which.

Or the pilot decided to commit suicide.

Although Shah’s drowning and most likely Shakeer’s was intentional, many will object, “suicide” they say is forbidden in Islam.

Regarding the previous Egyptair crash, flight 990, back in 1999: "The NTSB's final report was issued on 21 March 2002, after a two-year investigation, and concluded that the crash was a suicide by pilot." (the first officer, not the captain)

I remember back then Egyptian authorities saying the same thing as above: that it couldn't possibly have been suicide by pilot because "suicide is forbidden in Islam."

Apparently they are unaware of the hundreds of Muslims who have blown themselves up over the years, frequently slaughtering other Muslims, ignoring the "suicide is forbidden in Islam" thing.

Interesting about the Malaysian Airlines flight. If the captain of that flight was Muslim, it's certainly not out of the question that he took the plane down intentionally (although, of course, a flight officer doesn't have to be Muslim in order to deliberately crash a plane: Germanwings crash/Andreas Lubitz, co-pilot)

To this day the Egyptian government maintains that Egyptair 990 was shot down by a U.S. missile. But the rest of the aviation world knows that's bullshit. Egyptair themselves knows it is bullshit. So now the Egyptian government gets a lot more, shall we say, oversight from the aviation community in air crash investigations. The NTSB and EASA are watching them like hawks. Egypt have to turn to Airbus (and whoever its sub is) for help with the flight recorders, and Airbus will make its own copies of everything and do its own transcripts. Since the crash didn't take place on Egyptian territory, the Egyptian government has a lot less control over the investigation. And there's a lot more observers watching the progress on the Internet than there used to be. Everything they know, Aviation Herald will find out and post within hours. If the investigation is monkey-wrenched, the whole world will know.

To this day the Egyptian government maintains that Egyptair 990 was shot down by a U.S. missile.

I didn't know that -- I thought they claimed mechanical failure -- but I'm also not surprised. Seeking to blame others seems to be an unfortunate tendency in that part of the world. I'm sure mullahs in Egypt could convince a reasonably large segment of Egyptians that ISIS was actually created by the United States and/or Israel to make look Muslims look bad.

With Egyptair, I believe it was the cockpit voice recording that was the smoking gun for determining it was first officer suicide (and, of course, mass homicide.) So I hope they recover both recorders from this recent crash and they end up shedding light on what actually happened.

Maybe Islamists should just create a special airline, for pilots and passengers who want a quick trip to beyond. All tickets one-way, to the sea of your choice. It would be a win-win: the Islamists would get to exit life, thinking they were headed toward their blissful Paradise and the rest of the world would get rid of many Islamists.

"With Egyptair, I believe it was the cockpit voice recording that was the smoking gun for determining it was first officer suicide."

Yes; from the CVR it was absolutely clear what happened. Flight recorders have been a boon to air transport safety. Before we had them, many crashes went unsolved.