As I have also pointed out, there are a number of cases where these large airliners have been returned to landing after losing their vertical stabilizer--the fact the stab was gone would not be expected to have caused the airplane to fall out of the sky either.
"This is way beyond my expertise. But the statement about the B-2 fly-by-wire requiring no vertical tail doesn't prove a thing. There's nothing resembling that kind of special computer controls in an Airbus." Cicero, you are wrong. To the contrary, the Airbus is a pure fly by computer airplane. And in fact, that should not make any difference either--unless the pilots made serious errors which do not appear in the record, if they could have hand flown the airplane, loss of the vertical stab would not have kept them from returning to make a safe landing. The pilots were dependant on a computer driven control system to fly the airplane--although most of the new commercial airliners are fly by wire airplanes (electrical inputs to a computer run the control surfaces), the Airbus is the most dependant on the electrical computer system.
"I, too, thought that was a bit off the wall... the B1 and B2 will NOT fly without computer assistance because of their inherent instability." (From Swordmaker)
Sure but so what--there are other airplanes out there that also do not have vertical stabilizers and which have no computer or electrical servo driven flying systems either--the Bonanza V34 is one example. Loss of the vertical stab did not have anything to do with this event either.
The author here advances an analysis that would account for the accident--uncommanded deployment of the thrust reverser. He accounts for the event by sabotage. Well and good--that is a possibility. "How easy this author makes it seem for someone to clip a few critical wires within an engine, making cuts that bring down an airliner without fail. I wonder how the delayed flight of this airliner fits into this scenario?" (By Republic) No. His suggestion is a little more complicated than that--his sabotaur was not cutting wires, he was cutting hydraulic tubeing which is a little more difficult and requires a fair amount of knowledge because there are a number of metal tubes up there and if you cut the wrong one, the fan simply does not spin. But his thesis is possible although I think remote. Your point about the late departure is however relevant--by the time they were off the ground, they would have run out of the sabotaur's time line which makes the authors suggestion a little less likely.
For one thing, no reason an uncommanded thrust reverser event requires sabotage--it happens more often than the flying public wants to know for a whole host of reasons other than sabotage. One of the Boeing airplanes had a reputation for regular uncommanded deployments because of some glitch in the way the systems were wired.
The pilot is trained to recognize the problem and the usual remedy ought to have been to cut power to the engine. Even if the pilots screwed up and failed to recognize the problem, they still had to make a number of other mistakes to get this result--it is possible but in my view remote. Further, if it happened that way, the NTSB would have jumped on it because they could have said it happened by accident. So I tend to doubt the evidence will support this series of events.
My own view is that there is much more likely series of events that explains the crash and those events start with an incendary device in the checked baggage compartment. That explanation also deals with another piece of evidence which is the reliable eyewitness testimony to fire at the root of the wings on both sides of the airplane.
Anyone else know for sure?
The A-320 is. But this was an A-300, which is not "pure fly by computer".