[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

I agree the turbulence shouldn't cause the plane to fall to pieces, but like all major catastrophes it takes about 4-5 things to go wrong, in the necessary order, to cause the catastrophic results. Any one of which, if removed, would in all likelyhood cause a different result.

Think back to the Helicopter full of friendlies that our A.F. shot down over Iraq about 8 years ago.

Many problems. Wrong IFF code entered by ground crew, no visual check of target as per ROE, no notification of flight plan of helo to A.F. controllers, and another that is slipping my mind right now.

Remove any one of those and no friendly fire disaster.

I suspect if this is not sabatoge then what happened was a series of events and circumstances that are not likely to happen again even without a change in any policy.

But you can bet some manufacuring processes are going to be reexamined.

[ExiledInTaiwan]

Seems to me a string of Airbus 300 accidents in Asia, last few years. Of course all were in go-around mode, in weather. Some problem with extreme angle of attack and stalling.

Of course most were with China Airlines (ten times the average for incidents) and could have been pilot error: one case in Japan, one in Taipei. Any comments?