[C1D]

This is pretty suspicious. First we find out that two passengers were using stolen passports and now we find out that 20 passengers belonged to the same company.

I'm not going to say it's terrorism just yet but it is pointing towards that or something like it.

[p0ppe]

Isn't it pretty standard for groups to be traveling together? I'm fairly certain you'd find some kind of larger group on pretty much all flights. In this case it happened to be 20 passengers working for Freescale.

[quahaug]

Actually, this crops up as a legal/insurance concern for larger valuable companies every so often, where company policy must stipulate in writing that critical numbers and/or groups of employees should not fly on the same airplane at the same time, since airplanes, though statistically safer than cars, are still prone to catastrophic accidents and are opperated by pilots not under direct control of the company.

In order to fulfill certain contracts or receive insurance coverage, written language for company travel policies must ensure the continuity of proprietary trade secrets, and redundancy for mission-critical personnel, in case of disaster, or catastrophic accident.

There was a tech company (during the 80's or 90's?) that was completely destroyed by a single random plane crash that killed a handful of the key people in one fell swoop, but the name escapes me, and my google skills are failing. Maybe someone else will remember. I want to say it was a vintage video game company, but it might've just been some old (now defunct) electronics company...

For this same reason, the president and vice president of the united states don't fly together. I think military command adheres to similar rules.

[flurdy]

You would think governments would also avoid such risk, but the top brass of Polish government all got wiped out when a plane crashed in Russia in 2010, including their President. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_TU-154_c... A sad event, but could have been avoided or at least minimised.

[e28eta]

I wonder how that squares with tech companies providing shuttle buses in the Bay Area. I found a reasonable looking comparison that said bus travel is more dangerous than flying.

My guess is the company has more control over the bus, or the bus charter company shoulders the insurance burden.

[nknighthb]

The missing factor is time for recovery. If an employee, even an executive, dies, it may be a problem, but probably not a catastrophe. Others can pick up the slack, a replacement can be hired and trained, etc.. You can kill the entirety of the original team and not be in dire straits, provided they die over the course of several years.

If an entire team dies at once, there's no one to pick up the slack, and no one to train replacements.

It is both unlikely that an entire team will be on a commuter bus at once, and even if they were, it is unlikely that a bus crash would kill all of them.

Plane crashes, in contrast, have a nasty habit of killing everybody on board all at once.

[maccard]

I don't think you understand what he meant. I know there are companies around me that have offices located in not-so-central areas of the city that offer a free bus service to bring you from major public transport hubs to their offices.

[nknighthb]

It is true there are corporate shuttles covering a variety of distances and particular use cases. It eludes me why that makes you think I didn't understand, or what it has to do with my comment.

[walshemj]

And a bus crash will not normally have a 100% fatality rate

[newerguy]

Though not the event to which you are referring, Trump lost 3 senior executives in a helicopter crash back in '89. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/11/nyregion/copter-crash-kill...

[sgt101]

Years ago I was asked to help organise a reward/training day for our department at a large European corporate. I found a charter flight and arrangements for a hotel in France that knocked the spots off local options and came in 15%+ cheaper. It was a no go because of the risk of putting everyone on a single flight. Still - I'd agree this is likely to be a co-incidence and the result of these poor souls effectively commuting between fab and design facility.

[ig1]

While the two stolen passports are suspicious, it's important to realize that there's plenty of flights with people with stolen passports. The most common reason is illegal immigration rather than anything more untoward.

[einhverfr]

Also according to AVHerald, it is now reported that one of the Chinese individuals identified on the manifest never left China. It seems to me that this is almost certainly about illegal immigration and/or stateless individuals than it is anything nefarious.

[einhverfr]

While we are going for crazy conspiracy theories, 24 of the Chinese passengers were from a calligraphy art group returning from having their art displayed in KL. Maybe it is someone who really really hates Chinese calligraphy?

The point is that there are all kinds of reasons why groups of people end up on the same plane.

[munimkazia]

Last year, when my employer had an offsite event, nearly the entire flight was filled with my coworkers.

When I was working for an event management company a few years ago, it was very common to have 10-15 people of the same company in the same flight..

Forget about suspicious.. There is nothing odd or even remotely unusual to have 20 people of one company travelling in the same flight. Let's not add more to the mystery than what's already there.

[nknighthb]

I can't think of any reason someone would bring down a plane just to kill 20 probably low-level Freescale employees. I can't even think of any reason someone would be specifically targeting Freescale employees at all -- not even their myriad competitors would stand to gain in any material fashion.

[raverbashing]

You should work for a news channel. This kind of speculative crap is what they like

[Frqy3]

You would probably benefit from reading "The improbability principle: why coincidences, miracles, and rare events happen every day" by David J. Hand

[smegel]

Also, the two stolen passports were using tickets bought together (sequential ids). Not sure the Freescale group adds to the suspicion though...

[jfoster]

Stolen passports, perhaps. How is 20 passengers being from the same company suspicious, though?