"
It's also rubbish.
"O2 masks a big no no"
Really?
It may surprise some to know that there are around 2 full emegencies (thats call out of the whole shooting match of emergency services to be ready at the airport for the aircraft arrival) at Heathrow a week. Some of those involve suspected fires, electrical or otherwise and or smoke in the cockpit. First thing the flight deck crew do is put on an oxygen mask. Is that a danger? No, of course it isn't! The O2 is going into the crews lungs. Besides it isn't pure oxygen, the mix is about the same as air. So obviously it's adding nothing to the danger.
So, there the crew are, according to genius, pulling circuit breakers, and before they pull the radio ones, they don't bother to mention they have a problem? It might well, if his scenario had any validity, have been a bloody good idea to let ATC know, as the fire service might be a bit handy if they got it on the ground, as Saudia once found out with a Tristar.
In none of the 20 or so smoke in the cockpit/Suspect fires on aircraft I went to did they pull the radio CB's. Even in the Swissair MD11 crash in Canada/US in the 1990's where the aircraft did have an electrical fire, the crew managed to talk to ATC. They also put it down on the sea, albeit badly, within minutes, why? Because aircraft are now dependent on the power. if that goes they don't fly.
He mentions tyre fires, on an aircraft designed in the 1950's, the DC8, that sort of issue has been designed out now. Besides, the warnings would have been more than apparent, and a radio call made long before it could become an issue.
I understand why Pilots use terms like unlikely. Simply because many of the theories being bounded about, are just that unlikely, but there has to be an exception to everything, and although it's a very very slim chance, it can't be excluded. As I said at the very start, the usual cause of a sudden end of communications and an aircraft disappearing is catastrophic fail to the airframe, the cause of that is either a bomb, or structural failure. I didn't exclude the possibility of the second of those, just as I wouldn't completely exclude the possibility of fire, it's just the chances, given the way airliners are designed now, it is at the lower end of the possibility scale.
So based on reasoning and a bit of knowledge of aircraft systems, thats why I doubt the case is a fire at that point of the flight.