Malaysia Flight 370 – Maybe The Mystery IS The Terror
The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is, so far, uncomfortably, uncannily close to the plot of my thriller, Die By Wire.
But a lot of comments have been made about the absence of terrorist “chatter” and claims of responsibility. But maybe that’s the point.
Maybe the mystery IS the terror.
That was the point I made in Die By Wire.
My evil mastermind knew that it’s hard to top 9/11. People get inured … one more hijacking. One more building on fire. Been done. The shock gets absorbed.
Especially so because people push back against someone they can identify, can blame, can hate. Identifying someone to blame offers closure, psychological release where healing can start.
But making aircraft simply disappear gins up fear and distrust. The uncertainty of NO closure can be more painful and last longer than a spectacular blast.
This is the monster under the bed. It’s a primal, visceral fear. And that’s why I chose that for Die By Wire.
My evil mastermind in Die By Wire also knew that this visceral fear and uncertainty could financially cripple airlines. The billions and billions of economic damage done to the Great Satan Crusaders creates real global damage that exceeds a 9/111.
It’s also a great way to make money. My criminal genius in Die By Wire devoted as much time to the financial aspect as to the actual mechanics of making multiple wide-body aircraft disappear. He was a canny old evil fox with the best positions in the debt and equity markets to make money on the disaster. And that makes millions … perhaps billions to fund even more creative terror.
Who was short on Malaysia Airlines stock before the disappearance?
And the pilots do not need to be in on the scam. My bad guys hacked the GPS, signals electronics and crashed the fly-by-wire computers in a very controlled manner.
In reality, civilian GPS is unencrypted and can easily be spoofed by third parties. The fly-by-wire computers are harder, but it has been demonstrated that they can be hacked with an Android phone.
Some links about all that here: Malaysia Flight 370: Here’s How Hacker/Hijackers Can Do It (http://lewisperdue.com/?p=4444).
If something comes along that can shake the foundations of the flying public’s faith in airline safety, then airlines and governments can’t afford to let you know.
That’s why the government was trying to kill DBW’s hero and heroine as they struggled to save the passengers on the multiple aircraft that the villain was going to disappear into the ocean.
