Air France crash: plane may have broken up in mid-air
Telegraph UK ^ | June 3, 2009 | By Henry Samuel in Paris
Posted on Wednesday, June 03, 2009 12:30:55 PM by Oldeconomybuyer
The vast area over which debris has been found suggested there was an explosion while the aircraft was in flight.
Unnamed experts quoted by the Le Monde newspaper said the “wide dispersion of wreckage discovered suggests that the Airbus (A330-200) exploded at high altitude”.
Terrorism has not been ruled out but they said the most likely scenario was that the break-up was caused by massive depressurisation inside the plane.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2263899/posts
It’s starting to appear that the plane exploded in mid air. A brand new, state-of-the-art plane doesn’t just explode on its own. Everyone is afraid to say the “T” word.
I'll defer to anyone with more recent experience if I'm blowing smoke on this, but as an ex-aerospace engineer, I call that line of wordsmithing absolute BS.
Depressurization (at least they could spell it properly) typically RESULTS after a hull failure, window or door loss, but the only cause I can think of for a sudden and catastrophic break up of an aircraft is OVERPRESSURE.
Such as an explosive device going off.
(And don't even bother with "the lightning strike caused it" meme: Been in an aircraft that was struck by lightning and never caused an explosion, even when we were packing a load of bombs.)