Don't waste time speculating on a motive. It doesn't prove anything and does not find the plane.
Don't waste time speculating on who. It is on;y speculation and does not find the plane.
Focus on determining where the plane went, where it is and how it is being hidden. That will lead to the other answers.
"It starts transmitting when something goes wrong"
In theory it might start transmitting when something goes wrong, but clearly things can "go wrong" that would also prevent the start of the transmission. For example, if a couple of hijackers steal a plane and fly it to Thailand, they will turn off the device around the same time that they turn off the transponder. And just diverting the plane to a different location isn't likely to be detected as "something going wrong" to start the data transmission anyway.
No, you're wrong. I saw a Raspberry Pi kit in a Radio Shack just last month. But at a price well over $100, it was just an insult to anyone who knows what they should sell for.
The company has for decades destroyed their reputation. If there were a RS store and an independent next to it selling similar things, I would gladly pay a bit more at the other store for similar items just to avoid buying it as RS. Not that I would have a high expectation that I would be getting something better at the other store, but at least I wouldn't be expecting things to be defective because I bought them at RS.
Decent science and electronics kits and related items are getting rarer and rarer. Even the people who say that they "built" their own computers now actually are only appliance users who just stuck together a dozen or so pre-assembled parts and never touched a soldering iron, likely don't even own one. A real brick-and-mortar store that catered to true hobbyists would be hard pressed to survive anywhere except extremely densely populated areas with above average technical customers. I don't see how they could make it as a national chain with thousands of locations, even if they had not built a reputation for selling defective items at extremely high prices.
As far as I'm concerned, Radio Shack's business model has long been to sell overpriced but inferior merchandise. In many areas it is the only place one can physically go to by some electronic parts, so it does get some traffic even from people who are reluctant to buy from them. If they were to go on-line only, I expect that they would soon be out of business completely, a result that I would not feel bad about because just maybe someone else might try to fill the void.
Even the simplest things bought from RS seem to be plagued with defects. I've bought cables from them and found them intermittent and once I bought a simple 2 to 1 telephone jack and, when my phone wouldn't dial when connected through it, I found it was wired wrong. Their electronic component "substitutes" are frequently improperly spec'ed. And as to price, I recently saw a Raspberry Pi kit in Radio Shack, it was priced well over $100.
May these stores just be the first, I'll be glad to see them all go.
It's a naive, domestic operating system without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.