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Comment by zmb_ | Hacker News Reader

Maybe they didn't want the plane, but someone on the plane. For example, those 20 Freescale Semiconductor employees. North Korea has a history of abducting foreigners, including a South Korean movie director kidnapped by Kim Jong-il to produce films for him.

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There's an easier way of getting people. If you want 20 people taking an additional 200 people and an airliner with them seems overly complex compared to, say, hitting them on the back of the head as they're walking home and bundling them in a van.

How is it easier to go around hitting 20 people on the back the the head and then figuring out how to drive them to North Korea at the back of a van without being detected? If your goal is to get a large team of semiconductor engineers against their will, I can hardly think of a more efficient way than simply flying the plane they are on to your country.

It is a lot easier. Of course you would use a ship or even the official Air Koyo flight from KL instead of a van...

The hijacking and stealthily flying it to North Korea are so complex it's beyond ridiculous. There are so many more details which could go wrong and a much bigger international backlash especially from China. And why would they fly back across Malaysia if they wanted to go to North Korea?

How many would come to NK for $1m a year? If I were building a team of engineers in NK that's what I'd be offering rather than an incredibly risky and difficult manuver like this...

And that way you probably get better work out of them than if you're holding them hostage.

On the upside if they are holding a bunch of really smart guys hostage and giving them stuff to build things with then a real Iron Man suit is surely inevitable.

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