Posted by Ivan Rendall on Saturday, 31 September 2015 in Blogging
KGL 9268 CRASH
The victim’s families and friends have one savage fact: they know their loved ones are not coming home. All good people are with them.
Today, the Russians authorities, the Egyptian authorities, the Russian airline, The Egyptian aviation people, Presidents Sisi and Putin, British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM, Air France, ISIS… have no facts but lots of different views about the crash of the A321 over Sinai, as expressed in their words and in actions.
Some are trying to grab the blame; others are trying to avoid it.
Facts are few. Evidence of anything beyond that the aircraft has crashed is, as it always is, is bouncing around media like peas on a drum. Experts are preparing for the media war, for the technical investigation, for data from the cockpit voice recorder and “black box.”
This is going to run and run as spin doctors from the airline industry, aircraft manufacturing industry, holiday and tourism industries, national governments of Russia, Egypt, Ukraine, Belarus, and international regulators play round after round of Olympian Blame Games.
Some things are being aired; others not.
Here’s a thought: the A321 is a fly by wire (FBW) airliner, an industry standard for the last 25 years; it is in modern media speak “computer controlled” though the pilot is still in the cockpit rather than thousands of miles away as with military “drones;” We hear about 15 yr.-old boys hacking to Talk Talk, highly sophisticated, international data heists, driverless cars, and yes, drones, counter drones, counter-counter drones at airport approaches and over the back gardens.
We should ask the better aviation security experts whether this crash could be a first piece of airliner “hackjacking”, somebody who for any one of thousands of reasons interfered with the computer controls of KGL 9628 on the ground, in the air, even, wildly through an on-board device, to kill people and screw up the already screwed up Middle East.
Yes do the technical investigation, do it thoroughly and truthfully and that means maximizing transparency something for which neither Russia nor Egypt are particularly well known or equipped.
Better to ask the questions:
“Are there real threats we have not thought of yet? “
“ Who Benefits?”
ISIS or their offshoots have made what seem to be muddled and non-credible claims but the crash already benefits them, because until we all have the truth (probably impossible) there is going to be a residual fear which will seep into the airline industry and the global importance of 15,000 plus airliners which could be attacked in a similar way.
The way governments will handle this is a gift to ISIS if all the rest of the world does is just argue amongst themselves.
The speculation surrounding the “emergency landing for technical reasons” and the “loss of control” before it crashed” are no more evidence than the denial of ‘missile attacks” or the bringing of what may be premature criminal proceedings against the airline.
There’s lots of speculation swirling round, but it’s all there for a purpose: positioning and propaganda.
Let’s stick to hard questions, publically aired and answered by people who know what they’re talking about, and not let the cause of the crash disappear into a multi-national series of Chilcot Inquiries because that suits politicians.
The investigation does not belong to Russia and Egypt, or the airline industry – there is more at stake than that, even if in the end the explanation is simple and not either terrorism or conspiracy.
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