“Seems to me that loading the plane with passengers and getting as close to a target with innocents to add ‘cover’ for visual contact from fighter protection might be a very real ploy.”
There was a novel many years back with a plot line where the ChiComs flew a passenger plane carrying a nuclear weapon into the US with Korean War prisoners seated at the windows so intercepting fighters would see white faces and think it was a normal airliner out of comms.
Anything is possible. Would Obama have the nads to order the USAF to shoot down a planeload of civilians on the possibility it was a Trojan Horse?
No, I don’t think he would. They would sooner have a 911 than take responsibility for downing 250 innocents because the clear blame could be layed at the terrorists feet in a mass destruction event. Explaining the real world necessity of taking out a plane full of civilians because of real intelligence would be a image negative thing and too hard to spin.