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Just the idea of a plane vanishing, gone, with well over 200 people on board, boggles the mind. No distress calls?

I can only imagine the sudden chaos that erupted.

Technology v. Nature.

perhaps there was rapid decompression caused by the turbulence caught the pilots without their masks on, and they fell unconscious, thus no distress call, and a crash. there could have been a structural failure and the airplane may have broken up on descent to a lower altitude. remember the American Airlines crash in New York in October, 2001, where the vertical fin broke off, it was an Airbus A300. The BOAC crash caused by turbulence near Mt.Fuji in 1966 was a massive structural failure as well. Hard to believe the pilots would not have seen this weather on the radar and steered around it. Then again, they depend on meteorological reports and guidance from the ground in these situations, and may have been waiting for instructions. I've never flown through severe turbulence (few have and lived to tell about it) but I've experienced light turbulence, the kind where your butt leaves your seat very briefly, and it's not fun. 4 hours of that and you have a back ache.

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