@mlevison @cstross @baldur in 2010 there was an airplane crash that killed a few dozen top Polish officials, diplomats, military officers etc. including the president of the country. There was an investigation that concluded it was a perfect storm of human error and negligence.
There were also conspiracy theories peddled, among others, by people with PhDs in everything but airplane accidents (including things like history or medicine). "this guy must be right because he has PhD", basically.