[GOPJ]

I think it is entirely possible that the mission planning for this on the terrorist's side was a globe and a string. I think they waited too long to start, then wasted time with control measures within the aircraft and trying to avoid detection instead of getting on towards their destination. Their altitude selection probably didn't help. Fuel consumption changes with altitude, as it does when you aren't smooth on the throttle.

OK... so you think it was terrorists - but they screwed up?

[xone]

Of course it was terrorists. The flight crew had over 20k hours. Everybody thinks they can fly. A little sim time here and I'm good to go. In a perfect world maybe. Taking that plane at night was I imagine an effort to avoid being confronted by fighters.

Flying at night has its own set of challenges that can only be mitigated by experience. Once the terrs had control of the plane, if anything went wrong, their training would have been quickly stretched. Trying to evade radar, flying west probably aggravated that problem.

While I feel bad for the passengers who were going to be killed in any event, I would have loved to have looked into the cockpit as the fuel state declined with no hope of landing and see that realization that they had been set up by their masters.