“Mind, this doesn’t rule out an incendiary planted in the avionics bay while the aircraft on the ground, but pending the FDR and CVR recordings, this doesn’t look like ‘bomb in cockpit’ or ‘suicidal pilot’.”
Interesting, hadn’t read any of that. Thank you.
Should also mention that the order of the ACARS messages and their location pretty much rules out ‘bomb or incendiary in luggage’ as well - that model of Airbus carries the front luggage hold well back from the cockpit. If something had gone off in the front hold, even if it had somehow simultaenously destroyed all of the many in-hold smoke and fire sensors (mandatory after that ValuJet went down over the Everglades in the 90s) the lav smoke alarm would have gone off first as it would be the closest point.
It doesn’t eliminate terrorism as the cause, just the more common means jihadists use for bringing down planes.