I'm with Hermann on this one - we know from the Lost Experience that Widmore, Paik , and Mittelwerk haved done business before. (Paik Heavy Industries built the medical ship for the Worldwide Wellness Prevention Development Program for the Hanso Foundation, under T. Mittelwerk, who, through shady dealings took over Alvar Hanso's seat on the Widmore board of directors). These three powerful men definately have the international reach , endless capital and the questionable characters (Thomas Mittelwerk basically took Alvar Hanso hostage and then took over the Hanso Foundation and the Widmore Board of Director's chair. From what Sun said last night to Jin's mom - you know what my family is capable of thing, and whatever Mr. Paik was making Jin do) to accomplish anything.
AND
Maybe the plane was not supposed to crash, maybe it was supposed to make some sort of landing on the beach - rough, but survivable. Or maybe there's an airstrip somewhere - what were Kate and James working on - building another runway? But perhaps there was an unfortunate accident and unforeseen event - Desmond didn't push the button - and the plane did crash. (Did anyone else think it was weird that there were pregnancy tests, Widmore pregnancy tests, on board a commercial airliner, flight 815? Is that a standard item on flights like Jack's little liquor bottles? I wouldn't think that was something someone would just carry with them either - you suspect your pregnant, you buy a test, you use it, then toss it.)

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