"Whatcha doing boy genius?"
"Just admiring the view."
"Oh really, you know most people have to pay to see this. Or at least take me out to dinner first."
"Actually, that painting behind you is an original Nicolas Poussin from either 1635 or 1636. Di...
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"So the fact is, the way the plane broke apart, we think the crash was caused by something internal."
Ivie and Reid looked at each other as he finished their explanation, small smiles passed between them.
"So are we talking about some sort of explosive decompression, like on TWA flight 800?" JJ questioned.
"A large explosion like that would have us left with only small debris, about the size of a carry-on bag at most." Ivie replied
"That rules out a hijacker with a bomb as well." Rossi stated.
"Wait a minute." The heads of the team turned as Commander Reardon spoke. "A hijacker would certainly explain the 13 minutes of lost communication. Maybe he drove the plane into the ground."
The thought going through Ivie's head was making her a little uncomfortable, apparently it was noticeable. Looking back up from her feet she saw JJ, an inquisitive eyebrow told her that she had been found out.
"So, what if the passengers took charge, flew the plane into the ground. To avoid a larger tragedy."
"If that were the case," Hotch voiced, " I'd suspect a faster cascade of events. Still, we can't rule it out."
"The problem is there's many reasons that a plane can lose communication, broken microphones, air traffic controllers giving pilots the wrong radio frequencies. Averaging it out, aircraft lose communication for around seven and a half minutes." Ivie commented.
"We have to remember the transponder was still working." JJ reminded everyone. "No secret code to indicate a hijacking or any other emergency was sent"
"Let's think about this." Morgan, who had been mostly quiet seemed to have an idea, "The ACARS data recording system was turned off."
Hotch followed on, "And that would have to come from someone in control of the flight systems."
"So, something happens in the cockpit. That makes the pilot and/or the co-pilot the most likely candidates." Rossi ended the group's train of thought.
"Their background checks came back clear." Commander Reardon pointed out.
"What about suicide?" Now they had circled back to Morgan, Ivie's neck was hurting a little from looking back and forth between the group of people surrounding the plane's blueprints.
"Wait, Reid!" Ivie's comment from earlier came back to her. "The slats! I forgot about it in the foray of getting the blueprints, but for them to deploy in mid-air they'd have to be deployed by the pilot either in error or... intentionally"
"Right, JJ, Morgan I need you to go back to the hospital and see what you can find out from the co-pilot and his wife, Evans, Reid I need you to find out exactly how deploying the slats mid-air would happen and affect the aircraft. Dave and I will go back over the background of the pilot"
