Dr. Arnot on NBC this morning said in a rapid failure like this the pilot almost certainly was focused on trying to fly the plane, not reporting trouble to the ATC. He had very little time to do anything before the plane broke up, probably only a few seconds. Sounds reasonable to me.
Earlier I was convinced this was a bomb. Now I am fairly sure it wasn't. Old plane, old engine with history of failure, delayed takeoff due to mechanical malfunction -- sounds like a classic catastrophic engine failure. The good news is we should know very quickly one way or the other. There are too many media people crawling all over this scene for there to be any coverup.
We have to be able to realize that September 11 did not stop planes from failing, people from being nuts and committing weird and gruesome crimes that have nothing to do with terrorism, Hazmat trucks being stolen for joyrides, and other assorted bad things.
So, this plane may have had a mechanical problem before take-off and was delayed for maintenance, but apparently they did not fix the problem or all the problems. They let the plane go on its way. Were they specific if it was an engine problem? Is it really that hard to sabotage an aircraft engine? Just leaving a wrench inside the cowling would seem enough to me. I think the truth is that the gov does not know what caused this crash. We have seen crashes before. What is the first thing the investigators say to us? "Its too early to say." "It could take months to figure it out". Public confidence is not too high right now. Where there is secrecy there is suspicion.