NEW YORK (CNN) -- The price of crude oil plummeted $2.35 settling at $74.00 a barrel on the NYMEX Thursday, matching its second largest price drop of the year, but oil analysts were divided on whether the market was responding to news of a thwarted terror plot targeting trans-Atlantic flights.

Tom Bentz, an analyst at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures, noted that the market's volatility to news events seems to be extremely high these days.

"It may not have been the sole factor for the big price drop in oil but it certainly seems to have been the trigger, Bentz said. "People certainly have Sept. 11 on their minds when something like this occurs, and that could definitely cause a contraction in demand for flights, which would in turn decrease the airlines demand for fuel."

NYMEX Director George Gero, who is also senior vice president at RBC Dain Rauscher, agreed with Bentz's assessment.

"The drop in oil today is a combination of the economy slowing down and the news of this terrorist plot," Gero said.

"In addition to fear of flying being rekindled, airline travelers are going to ask themselves if it's really worth dealing with the monstrous inconveniences of large lines, large delays, and lost luggage that will result from this."

But other energy analysts completely disagreed, claiming the big drop preceded the announcement of the terrorist plot.

Fadel Gheit, Oppenheimer & Co. senior energy analyst characterized the assessment that the terror plot caused oil to plummet as "nonsense."

"Demand for airline flights is sky high and is not declining," Gheit said. "Oil dropped today because of a few different factors, but not the terror plot."

Gheit noted that the real significant news for oil was out of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. "Supply disruption does not seem to be nearly as serious as people had thought," Gheit said, referring to the pipeline shutdown by BP after the company discovered corrosion in some of its major oil transit lines.

The price of crude oil experienced its biggest decline for the year on May 15 when it plunged $2.63 a barrel. The all time record price decline for crude occurred on Jan. 17, 1991, when it plunged $10.56 near the beginning of the first Gulf War.

-- from CNN's Jonathan Schienberg

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