You may be right about that Atomictk.
I have always thought that Smokie and the 4 toed statue go together. Not literally mind you. Ever since the appearance of the statue I have thought that the island once was the home of a long-dead civilization. The statue and smokie are left-overs from that civilization (maybe Lemuria since it is in the pacific). Smokie may be all that is left, a bio-mechanical guardian maybe

It fits in with a Star Trek episode that I recall about a planet whose inhabitants died and left a massive supercomputer behind.
I think Smokie is what is left of this civilization and is attracted to strong emotions somehow. The flashing lights, images that Eko saw, what Locke saw, etc. seem to indicate that it is a biomechanical guardian of some sort. It may be limited in how far off the ground it can go. It did get the pilot, but it could have easily climbed up the plane to do so. It seems to travel underground an awful lot too.... did tunnels exist BEFORE Dharma got to the island???
I also think that the reason that there were so many survivors from the fuselage is that smokie aided the plane in a "softer" landing than in most crashes. After all 100 people or so would express some pretty strong emotions during a plane crash.
IMHO anyways.