What may have caused the Malaysian Airlines plane to disappear
The most dangerous parts of a flight are takeoff and landing. Incidents rarely happen when midflight.
The disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines jet well into its flight has led experts to assume that whatever happened was quick and left the pilots no time to make a distress call.
It initially appears there was either a sudden breakup of the plane or something that led it into a quick, steep dive. Some experts even suggested an act of terrorism.
Possible causes for a crash include:
Catastrophic structural failure This could have damaged the airframe or engines. Given the plane's impressive safety record, experts suggest this is unlikely.
Bad weather Planes are designed to fly though most severe storms, but poor weather has caused crashes in the past. However, the skies were clear in this case.
Pilot disorientation The pilots could have taken the plane off autopilot and somehow gone course.
Failure of both engines In January 2008, a British Airways 777 crashed about 1,000 feet short of the runway at London's Heathrow Airport. There were no fatalities. Such a scenario is possible, but the plane could glide for up to 20 minutes, giving pilots plenty of time to make an emergency call.
A bomb Several planes have been brought down by bombs. If the debris field is large it will indicate the plane broke apart high up.
Hijacking A traditional hijacking seems unlikely given that a plane's captors typically land at an airport and have some type of demand. But a 9/11-like hijacking is possible, with terrorists forcing the plane into the ocean.
Pilot suicide There were two large jet crashes in the late 1990s that investigators suspected were caused by pilots deliberately crashing.
Accidental shoot-down There have been two previous cases of passenger jets being brought down accidentally by the military.
