Military jets escort Qatar Airways plane to Manchester Airport

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BBC News 05 August 2014 Last updated at 13:45
Military jets escort Qatar Airways plane to Manchester Airport

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28662561

"......It is understood the plane involved is an Airbus A330, which was escorted by a Typhoon from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. ......."

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12 years 8 months

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Couldn't tell from the news footage, but would the Typhoon be fully armed in the event that the airliner would have to be forced down?

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15 years 10 months

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It is claimed Typhoon fully armed and as it was a QRA aircraft would imagine that to be correct.

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15 years 9 months

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Some facts -
Britain is an island - its best defence.
Over water is a better place for an aircraft to explode.

The Qatar flight crew should while calling for help and waiting for QRA response have gently steered the A330 over water, North Sea possibly and also gently descended - rationale - chances of survival if any of pax/crew if any device exploded may have been better given that helicopters and rescue vessels could have reached the wreck faster. More importantly it would have avoided any carnage on the ground.

While being an ardent fan of the RAF and the Typhoon and seeing it escorting the Qatar A330 from a non pax perspective may have looked good it would not have prevented any carnage on the ground.

3/4 RAF aircraft (one starboard, one port, one aloft and one below) would have been finally necessary, fully armed (Yes) to ensure the A330 stayed out of mainland Britain until the possible hoaxer was under full observation and then the A330 diverted to a remote RAF airfield in the UK, or Scandinavian air force field.

It may seem brutal but that is what QRA eventually may have to be in this world which has more and more 'nutters' and 'extremists' taking control of innocent lives.

The big question is who is paying or indoctrinating these 'nutters'?

It is sadly bringing also closer the world of 'sky marshalls' to all airlines.

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The person at the centre of this incident has been sectioned.

Regards

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Placing the individual under a Mental Health Order after the event isn't solving the problem of why the Qatar came over mainland Britain over very densely populated civillian areas with a Typhoon shepherding it.

What about the stress to all the people on the ground who witnessed it and had it fallen from the sky the carnage below to uninvolved civillians and businesses.

No one would have known if the device was pre -programmed, or capable of being triggered by another pax as the said pax/?hoaxer may have been only one of many 'nutters'.

The safest place to buy 'thinking' time in such a situation is low over the ocean and then deploy the Qatar to a remote air force airfield in remote parts of Britain or Scandinavia.

As yet unanswered questions are at what time did the pilot receive the supposed message from the pax and are pilots able to cope in the full decision making of such a threat (hoax or no hoax).

Also are the entire flight and cabin crew and ground handling staff (at all points where baggage was handled of stopover maintenance occured) clear of any collusion or ommission (security screening - in some parts of the world small money can permit a comprehensive security screening of baggage to be conveniently overlooked).

By placing the said individual under a mental health order we are playing into the hands of permitting that to be made the excuse for his behaviour and avoiding him being adequately charged for his crime/s (device or no device).
Does this also mask our trying to establish if this was a dummy run or were there other conspirators involved?
I have already posed the question - "Who paid the piper/s? And were there more conspirators involved?"

We haven't learnt from Pan Am (Lockerbie - only because of delay in flight timings that the device exploded over that area of Scotland otherwise the 747 would have been over the Irish Sea - some may say well then we would not have had much forensic evidence to go on? Yes we had that evidence but look at the mess we got ourselves into after that until quite recently and to this day we don't not know if we had knowledge and charged all of the conspirators involved ) OR the Airbus aircraft shot conveniently vertically through their wings by so called terrorists in Colombo Airport OR 911 OR dare I say it more recently MH370 or MH17 (Again who was paying the piper/s?)

Any aircraft if down to a low altitude over the ocean may withstand small device explosions (I do not have to go into the reasons) and hence may not break up completely but may limp on to land somewhere, in contrast to at high altitude over densely populated areas of Britain.

The RAF I salute you as you were doing what was asked of you for Queen and country but was it the correct complete strategy by those who requested it?