Are they basically just there to shoot down the plane before causes larger casualties by crashing into a heavily populated area? I can’t imagine what else a jet can do to a large commercial aircraft in the air.
Are they basically just there to shoot down the plane before causes larger casualties by crashing into a heavily populated area? I can’t imagine what else a jet can do to a large commercial aircraft in the air.
Its to scare civillians into compliance. Most of the time, they won’t shoot you unless they believe your aircraft is about to strike a building or something like that.
Its also to allow the pilots of the fighter jet to visually see what’s happening inside. In Helios Flight 522, the cabin presurization wasn’t set properly, so the entire plane lost consciousless. The autopilot flew the flight and went into a holding pattern near the destination, and because the pilots haven’t communicated with Air Traffic Control, send they fighter jets to “intercept” it. They didn’t do anything besides the Fighter Jet pilot just visually looking in the plane, and see the oxygen masks deployed, and someone (later identified as a flight attendent) with a bottle of oxygen trying to get into the cockpit, but when he got in, the plane ran out of fuel so there was nothing he could do, and steered the plane away from the population center at the final moments.
All of that was witnessed by the Flighter Jets pilots and the testimony helped with the investigation.
Basically, the way I see it, they are there “just in case” something happens and they need to shoot it down.