System crash (theory)

From Lostpedia

The system crash theory attempts to address and challenge the revelation by Desmond in "Live Together, Die Alone" that "I crashed your plane". The argument stems from a number of discrepancies in the Lost script, and suggests alternatives which might help to explain why Oceanic Flight 815 crashed on the Island.

The System Failure

The events of the Season 2 finale suggest that the system failure in the Swan station caused a brief electromagnetic anomaly, having the power to pull and/or fry electrical equipment on a passenger plane. However, it is unclear whether the anomaly did indeed "pull" the plane to the Island as part of the magnetism, or simply destroy an already overflying plane apart. In fact, both avenues can still be challenged.

Sayid holding the piece of metal

Assuming the magnetism "pulled" the plane to the Island, one must consider Sayid's words in "Everybody Hates Hugo". During the episode, Jack finds him using a piece of metal to break through the magnetic concrete wall in the Hatch. Jack shows Sayid his key being pulled to the wall, and Sayid replies "Good thing this is titanium, almost no magnetic attraction." The object he is using is undoubtedly a piece of plane wreckage, which begs the question that if the plane was made of metal with little magnetism, how could the system failure magnetically pull the plane down? Also, in "A Tale of Two Cities", we see no metal objects in Juliet's house fly across the room or react in any way other than from the earthquake experienced. If the magnetism had the power to pull a plane, it could at the very least also have been able to move some of her cutlery or electrical appliances.

The counter to these claims could be that perhaps the system failure caused an electronic failure on board the Oceanic flight. Thus, a total operations failure could have caused the plane to lose control entirely. However, for this to be correct, the flight would have had to already have been flying over the Island (which seems unlikely). Also, a failure of this kind would not necessarily result in a plane literally ripping apart in a mid-air break-up. It would be much more likely to see the plane actually just fall from the sky rather than disintegrate as much as it did. This therefore suggests that other factors may have played a part in the plane crash. Finally, even as Flight 815 was about to be destroyed, alarm sounds could still be heard on the plane, casting doubt on the idea that the system failure caused complete electronic malfunction.

The Pilot's last words

Finally, one should examine the words of the Pilot (man) right back at the very beginning of Season 1. He explained to Jack that "6 hours in. Our radio went out, no one could see us. We turned back to land in Fiji, by the time we hit turbulence we were 1000 miles off course. They're looking for us in the wrong place." Also, the Lost The Untold game reiterated this fact by showing documents about both radio and radar contact being lost (though the canonical nature of the site is questionable). So, from this we can establish that the plane lost radio and radar contact for an unknown reason, and it was not until 1000 miles later that the flight experienced turbulence and crashed. Therefore, perhaps it was the system failure which caused a loss of radio/radar contact for the flight, and something else caused the actual crash.

Other Explanations

The white object coming off the plane

The turbine explosion slowed down, note that two distinct black objects can be seen gliding in the sky when the image is enlarged

With the widely held theory of the system failure causing the crash challenged, one must look at other possible causes for the plane crash. Central to these alternatives are images derived from the Pilot episode of the show, and from the beginning of Season 3 of the crash from the Others' perspective.

Firstly, a point of interest from "A Tale of Two Cities" is that a small white object is pictured coming off the plane before any other part (see image). Though speculative, this does bare resemblance to an exit door, and watching the video back, it can be calculated that the piece came off the front of the plane, approximately where the forward cargo door is located. This could imply that someone was responsible for the plane crash in some kind of sabotage, and ejected the plane before it was destroyed. Alternatively, a malfunction with the front cargo door could have resulted in the plane becoming depressurised, leading to parts of the plane breaking off (see case study below).

Also, one must appreciate the evidence from the Pilot episode, where slowed down footage actually shows black smoke flying over a turbine and causing it to explode. This provides evidence that the "Monster" somehow played a part in the crash or the aftermath of such. However, this has been refuted by Damon Lindelof, who stated on the Official Lost Podcast that the monster was not seen physically in the Pilot episodes. He then went into detail about CGI goofs, implying that the appearance of black smoke at the turbine explosion was simply that.

Case Studies

United Airlines Flight 811

The result of United Flight 811's cargo door breaking off in mid-air

Taking the cargo door theory one step further, one should examine other cases when such an event has occurred. One key example in recent history was United Airlines Flight 811, which took off from Hawaii bound for New Zealand. During the flight, an apparent fault with the front cargo door led to it unlocking and breaking off from the fuselage. The result was immediate decompression, with five rows of business class seats and nine passengers being pulled through the gap in the vacuum. The pilot managed to descend the plane to breathable air and safely land, despite two faulty engines as a result of the incident.

The case study highlights that a cargo door breaking off from a plane can cause massive damage, but by no way seems to support what happened to Oceanic Flight 815, which completely broke up. However, United Flight 811 was travelling at 23,000 feet at the time of the incident, and Oceanic Flight 815 may have been much higher, causing greater damage during decompression.

China Airlines Flight 611

Another example of a mid-air break-up is China Airlines Flight 611, which took off from Taiwan bound for China in 2002. The plane mysteriously disintegrated, killing all passengers and crew onboard. It was determined that the cause of the crash was metal fatigue, as a faulty repair had been carried out after a previous incident. The result was a weakened hull, and on that flight it cracked and finally broke open. This caused depressurization, and led to the plane completely disintegrating.

This example seems to give much more support to Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 experiencing decompressurization of some sorts before breaking apart, as the real-world flight did actually break-up similarly. However, for this kind of event, the breach on Oceanic Flight 815 would have had to have been substantial like on Flight 611, going against the idea that the forward compartment door was responsible (which, as seen with Flight 811, did not cause the same degree of damage by a large margin).