It’s kind of a slow day at work, so here’s a thought experiment:
You wake up one morning, turn on the TV, and are confronted by news that Air Force 1 has been lost over the Atlantic Ocean. At this early stage, the following facts have been ascertained:
President Obama was flying back from a trip to Europe, where he met with various leaders to discuss the situation in Syria.
The president was on-board at the time. The search is ostensibly still a Rescue Operation (as opposed to a Recovery Operation), but nobody seems to be very hopeful.
“Sources close to the invesigation” indicate that there were no radio transmissions indicating distress.
OK, here is the question: What are your immediate suspicions? Accident? Bomb? Something else? If it’s a bomb, who do you immediately suspect? Foreign elements? Right-wingers in governement? Joe Biden?
Don’t give me the trite “I’ll wait for the evidence” line. Everyone would have suspicions.
Disappear with no distress signals at all? That’s a hard one…you’d almost have to have a bomb aboard the plane, and the chances of that are about zero.
I guess you could have a TWA800 scenario, though. That would be my guess…catastrophic failure of a fuel/electrical system.
Attacked in the air by a foreign power fighter jet or missile? Not sure if that could happen fast enough to preclude a distress signal. Does AF1 have radar on board to detect approaching aircraft?
Catastrophic failure. Anything else is dubious, especially if the plane was lost mid-Atlantic. Any type of interception or missile would show up on radar tracks or give ample time for a warning to get out.
First thought, is probably a bomb or some sort of sabotage. Particularly if related to talks about Syria, I could see any number of groups with various interests wanting to do something. Admittedly, a bomb or sabotage is extremely low chance, but the other options seem even lower.
I think there’s enough checks and redundancies on board, along with the escort, that some sort of a failure just wouldn’t happen. You’d pretty much have to have a catastrophic failure across a number of systems to have something like what’s described in the OP occur. Also, short of such a catastrophic failure that the whole plane pretty much immediately explodes in midair, surely that have some kind of procedure for evacuating the president and other VIPs.
There’s also the possibility of an attack by enemy planes or missles, but that seems even more far fetched. Such an attack would pretty much have to come from a state government and not a terrorist group. They wouldn’t fly over enemy territory, so such an attack would start off far enough away that between the escorts and friendlies, something could be worked out. Plus, if it were to come from a state, it would absolutely be an act of war, and I don’t think there’s anyone out there that’s truly willing to start a war with the US, especially in such a way that wouldn’t meaningfully weaken us, would be a clear declaration of war and would have the citizenry united, and it would definitely get support from our allies and the international community at large.
Then I read the “over the Atlantic” part and figure it’s damned weird that there’s no word of any kind, because Air Force 1 always has a couple chase planes accompanying it, and if AF1 suddenly exploded, you’d think they’d have something to say. Somebody would have to take out all three planes pretty much instantaneously, and that’d take an EMP or a nuke.
I would say fuel tank explosion, just like TWA 800 when it exploded over the Atlantic.
Or, maybe, someone forgot to secure New Jersey Gov Chris Christie to his seat, similar to the 747 that crashed last week at Bagram Airfield. Gov Christie was chasing the food cart during initial climb to altitude
In correction to my prior response: Escort fighters, not so much. However, there is the backup AF1 following behind with all the reporters & secret service who have to travel steerage, so my basic question still stands… it’s not that AF1 gets taken out, it’s that both of them get taken out.
I figure an accident would have given them enough time to make some kind of radio call. A bomb could destroy a plane instantaneously but I don’t think there are too many mechanical breakdowns that happen that quickly.
I’d say terrorists because I don’t think there are any foreign powers - even the crazy ones - that would think they could get away with something like this. And I generally dismiss the idea of secret political conspiracies, aliens, or supernatural attacks.
In that case, I’d have to say that my guesses would be either some odd natural disaster - they when down to some bizarre weather effect or a large meteorite smashed them out of the sky with a shockwave (and in the latter case I’d expect the shockwave or flash to be detected and announced momentarily - it would take something pretty big to take out two planes at once like that), or an attack by some foreign power. Terrorists I could see taking out one with a bomb, but both at once?
I’ve been told that it was actually shot down by one of those missiles, and it’s one of those things that won’t be revealed until after all potential parties are dead.
There was a book about this ca. 1970 that was made into a movie, called “The President’s Plane Is Missing”, although it crashed on land AND it turned out the president was not aboard. A double was, however, for reasons I can’t recall right now.
Donald Trump stowed away in the baggage compartment again? With his rug in another compartment?? That jerk.
But seriously, I would suspect an inside job. Sudden catastrophic failure of Air Force One without a single distress signal? I don’t tend toward conspiracy theorism in general, but I probably would in this case.
IIRC it was so the real President could negotiate a ban-the-nukes treaty with the Soviets in secret. The VP, who wasn’t in on it because the Pres didn’t trust him, damn near mucked up the whole thing. The book was by Rod Serling’s brother Robert, an airline-industry journalist.
Oh, yeah, the OP: Bomb, inside job by a reporter who looks like Gary Oldman and has a Kazakh accent.
If the plane were being escorted I think that counts out terrestrial forces; no way they could both get blown out of the air without a single radar warning or radio message sent out. So, my first (rational?) thought would be it’d have to be (an) extra terrestrial force(s), maybe debris from an asteroid too small to register, a solar flare or aliens.
My second would be a radio problem because of atmospheric conditions. The planes appear later on and they seem fine, except that everything about the aircraft and occupants is mirror-imaged.
