BigBubba wrote:"Lost contact" with no distress call of any kind would indicate either a catastrophic mechanic failure or some type of explosion. I would not think this route would be on any terrorists hot list, but who knows. This aircraft has a pretty good safety and performance record, unlike it's successor, the 787 "Dreamliner". There was an incident on approach to Heathrow where it was found that fuel had frozen in the lines on final approach. The China Air crash in San Fran was attributed to pilot error. Time will reveal all.
An electrical fire onboard could easily explain the silence in terms of no distress call. On Swissair 111, for example, the fire disabled the CVR slightly more than 5½ minutes before impact.
I believe that this is only the third hull loss for the 777, the previous two being BA 38 (as you noted,
Bubba), and OZ 214 at SFO, so until today, only one hull loss attributable to something other than pilot error. (And even the BA 38 loss was due to a problem with the engine, not the plane. That problem was not present in 777s which used GE engines, only those which were equipped with RR Trent engines.) An enviable, near perfect safety record for a model which has been flying for 19 years.
