Was Terrorism Behind Air France Crash?
On Wednesday morning, news emerged out of Paris that two Muslim men aboard Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, were Islamic radicals listed on France’s terrorist watch list.
French foreign intelligence agents from the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure) released this information to the Paris weekly L’Express. Immediately, the story became headline news around the globe. And then, just hours later, those same French terrorism investigators recanted.
“No Terrorists in AF447,” read the second L’Express headline posted on Wednesday evening at 5:35 p.m. local time. Translated from the French, the flip-flop was explained as follows:
Failing to have the date of birth of passengers, it was impossible [for DGSE agents] to know if they were real terrorists or homonyms. Refining their “screening,” the investigators said, raised doubts. The theory of the accident, which killed 228 people, remains privileged.
Why did DGSE agents release potentially “doubtful” information ten days into an investigation when they could have waited only a few more hours to verify facts? Before this information was released, terrorism as a cause for the crash was at the bottom of most experts’ guess lists. Investigators had been focusing on mechanical failure, namely faulty speed sensors, as well as lighting strikes. Satellite photographs suggest that the aircraft flew into a violent storm. At first there was no crash site, which only enhanced the mystery. Then the site was found. Headway was being made. Why bring terrorism into the mix so late in the game, only to say excusez-moi, our mistake?
It is implausible to think that French investigators would release theoretical information before they checked the birth dates, unless they wanted that information in the public domain. The exclusive story was generated by agents from the DGSE, not by the French press. By raising inside suspicions of terrorism, French investigators have gained collaborative possibilities from agents abroad. If critical passenger information was not being shared with international agents before, that certainly is no longer the case. Now terrorism investigators from around the globe — from Interpol to DHS — are decoding the backstory of every passenger on that list with new eyes. French investigators wanted to make the story headline news. And they did.
Am I the only one who thinks, that the Obama-Administration wants to hide the real cause in order not to disturb public? No conspiracy of course, just an informal understanding.
TO: Annie Jacobson, et al.
RE: To Paraphrase….
….Auric Goldfinger, as it relates to the names and crash….
One name is happenstance. Two is coincidence. With a crashed aircraft is enemy action.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out.....eventually....]
P.S. Until then….I’m not flying….and maybe not even afterwards….
I would guess that the French desperately want this to be terrorism, or some bizarre act of God that plucked the plane from the sky. Almost anything else as a cause is very bad news for Air France and for Airbus. If your planes develop a reputation for mysteriously falling out of the sky, it isn’t long before nobody will fly them.
Big deal. Obama will just have the FBI read terrorists their rights. After all, there is no such thing as organized terrorism, or Iran, or North Korea, or binLaden or the Easter bunny.
Modern airplanes are built like tanks. They don’t just come apart in a blinding flash because of a little stormy weather or ice on the pitot tubes. Something smells fishy.
When there is smoke there is usually fire.
Generally speaking planes do not just fall out of the sky. Not only will investigators find out that Islamic terrorists executed this attack-perhaps with others in tow-but it is very clear that Flight 800 was also a terror attack, perhaps other aviation ‘accidents’ as well.
The authorities can bob and weave all they like, but at the end of the day facts leak out.
The question we need to be asking is -when will western political leaders start facing facts. That whenever aviation terror is involved Islamists are not far behind.
When the leader of the free world refuses to utter the word terror – in the midst of a speech before mullahs, Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood- what expectation can we have that ANY future attack on US soil under his leadership will reveal the truth?
Not very likely…..
Just a simple observation, but isn’t it usually common for terrorists to claim their successes? Why has no group claimed downing this plane if it was a terrorist plot?
DaveK:
“I would guess that the French desperately want this to be terrorism, or some bizarre act of God that plucked the plane from the sky.”
yeah, that’s why it’s only written on american papers, you idiot !
To expand on DaveK’s comment, there are some specific criticisms of Airbus’ “fly-by-wire” control system that aren’t an issue with the Boeing planes, even the 787. Whether or not the criticisms are valid, and whether or not that turns out to be the actual cause, keeping the terrorism possibility alive keeps people from discussing it.
Until a definite cause is determined, which probably never will happen, this hangs like a cloud, fairly or unfairly, over Airbus.
The Brazilian police arrested a suspected Al qaeda member….then let him go in May. This was reported in the Brazilian press May 25:-
www1.folha.uol.com.br . . .
As the Brazilian government is made up of “ex” terrorists this should surprise no one.
I would guess that the French desperately want this to be terrorism, or some bizarre act of God that plucked the plane from the sky.
It was n’t the French but the Boche, err German built parts of the Airbus who came apart. That was the olive branch to Marie Claude.
Now seriously I can envision a plane falling because the speed is too low but not falling apart. Also while defective Pitot sensors could prevent the triggering of the stall warning alarm (I suppose), a healthy design would have the plane starting to shake well before it effectively stalls and falls.
Center of gravity problems can stress the cell hard enough that it ends falling apart but that was in WWII, we have learned a few things about plane design since then.
Or, it could be a bomb small enough not to set the plane on fire (because of the fuel floating on the sea we know the plane didn’t burn) but causing a catastrophic decompression.
“(because of the fuel floating on the sea we know the plane didn’t burn) but causing a catastrophic decompression.”
The fuel has been attribuated to ships that degazed (at the beginnings, but may-be there is a new hypothesis about it now)
the best scenario up to now :
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2009/06/11/01016-20090611ARTFIG00011-af-447-le-scenario-de-la-dislocation-en-vol-.php
Excellent work again, Annie.
Something went wrong on the flight and sabotage is a valid premise.Allthe other expanations seesm weak at this point. That does not mean it was a bomb but it still remains a possibility.
FWIW, Pitot tubes are ancient technology. If they had problems, it wasn’t because they were high tech a few bugs to be worked out, it was because of a design flaw.
I’m afraid that those who think that “the French desperately want this to be terrorism” couldn’t be more wrong.
I know my French friends, and bad as pilot error, mechanical failure, or Act of God would be for their, er, national dignity, no official “cause” of the catastrophe would be as “inadmissable” as Jihadist terrorism, which would do intolerable harm to their generally pro-Arab agenda.
And, given the positively comic extremes the French went to in order to prevent the airing of the fact that Arafat died of AIDS while under their care and protection, Jihadist terrorism will be the cause LEAST likely to be given, even if it is the correct one. ESPECIALLY if it is the correct one.
Thus, I predict that the story will just disappear. Like the plane itself. Long investigations will drag on, the victims of the families will be discreetly paid off, they will eventually be told, with a sad official shrug, “we will never know”, and that will be that.
I were you, I’d bank on it.
yeah, and some would say that the french invented the conspiraties theories, check all the “profesional sites for avionics, climate, earthquakes… they don’t believe in your idiot pré-jugés !
Even if the french sub finds the box, will it be public, or will it be ‘investigated’ first. Nine out of ten times when there is a bad air disaster, the US NTSB is called in because they’re the best at what they do. In this case they’re being kept off the scene. Why?
In the context of the disaster itself, I find the evidence of large amounts of bodies and big pieces of the plane FOUND FLOATING to be a huge clue. This suggests to me the plane came in at a shallow enough angle that it broke up on the surface, or perhaps the pilot actually tried a controlled ditch. If the plane augered in from 40,000 feet, the passengers would be goo. Water acts like concrete at high speed, completely pulverizing even large metallic components. That tail floating is a big clue to how that plane went down. The only problem is they didn’t find it for days, and the wind likely moved it dozens of miles from the crash site. This is a fascinating case and i’m following it closely.
Probability of causality
Mechanical Failure- 50%
Pilot/Human Error – 40%
Terrorist Act – 10% (the earlier guy had a point, no one has claimed credit)
Falconsword
Sic Semper Tyrannis
Regarding claims of responsibility….
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for either 9/11 or the Lockerbie Pan Am bombing.
The lack of a claim means nothing.
It’ll be like TWA 800.
Many witnesses on the grounds saw a missle
yet they were all dismissed.
They don’t want to start a panic.
Has anyone investigated the possibility that with the wrong speed measurements, the plane could have been going too fast (not too slow) and that with the proper head wind, the relative speed of the plane would have crossed the sound barrier? Think about it…the normal speed is about 870km/h…if the aircraft goes even 100 km/h over that speed, all you need is a headwind of 200 km/h to have a realtive speed over the sound barrier (which is about 1100km/h). Crossing that barrier could provoke the plane’s explosion from the vibrations.
Just a thought…
Yup if the pitot tube heater wasn’t working properly it could ice over. increasing thrust to compensate for the slower indicated speed would cause an overspeed condition. If the plane reached the speed of sound while in a storm the resulting turbelence could be blamed on the storm. This could happen quickly enough that the pilots did not recognize the problem.
When aircraft don’t fly at their designed speeds they fall out of the sky.
They don’t fly very well when they get blown up either.
I’ll wait for the flight recorder.
Macko,
Isn’t the flight recorder going to show the erroneous speed anyhow? How is that going to help? The only way to figure out whether the speed was wrong is to pinpoint the plane at 2 separate locations, figure out how long it took to cover the distance and check whether that matches the data…
Anyhow, I still think the sound barrier is a definite possibility.
TO: Macko
RE: Don’t….
….Hold Your Breath!
We might have to wait until we get a deep submersible to get it, IF we can find them.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[In this world there is always danger for those who are afraid of it. -- George Bernard Shaw]
TO: Andre, et al.
RE: My Personal Opinion?
The plane had a hole blown in it that caused it to tear itself apart.
A new form of ‘sneaker bomb’ approach, like that effort that was thwarted some years ago. Or the ‘cigarette bomb’ like Lockerbe.
And I think it is….in a way….’logical’ that the government cover it up. Like I suspect they covered up the plane that blew-up just after take-off from a New York airport shortly after 9/11.
My late brother-in-law was one of the design-engineering wizards at Boeing. And he told us that he and his compatriots there couldn’t figure out HOW the crash occurred the way the government reported it happened.
So. Based on his honest report. I expect the government lies about these things in order to ‘sustain’ the airline industry.
And, I respect the argument from Falconsword that no one has claimed responsibility. But I’m reminded of the fact that several days earlier there was a threat against an Air France flight. And furthermore, I’m reminded of the ad hoc Islamist sniper team from 2002. Or the shooting at LAX on 4 July some time back. Or the killing of the Army recruiter recently.
Who needs an ‘organization’ to carry out a simple, ad hoc, independent attack?
If you doubt this….
…what happened at the DC Holocaust Museum yesterday? Or to Tiller a few days earlier?
One or two people? Enough information on ‘how-to’? And you can do just about anything.
Heck….
….with the proper knowledge, you can make bombs out of Bisquick.
Bring a bag of Bisquick onto a plane and you could blow that plane out of the sky with the simple flick of a lighter. IF you know the steps in between.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Anything can be a weapon, if you know how to use it. -- CBPelto]
Why did DGSE agents release potentially “doubtful” information ten days into an investigation when they could have waited only a few more hours to verify facts?
Aren’t you a reporter? Why are you asking me? Shouldn’t you have tried to get that question answered before you sat down to write this?
By the way, I checked several sources. There is no doubt that the men have been cleared.
French and U.S. government sources, however, told ABC News that no Islamic extremists were aboard flight 447. A former senior White House official said “no names on the manifest triggered any U.S. intelligence persons of interest.”
A current senior CIA officer says he hasn’t seen anything suggesting that the Rio de Janeiro to Paris flight was downed by an act of terrorism. Additionally, French interior ministry spokesman Gerard Gachet denied the L’Express report.
The French news report reported that it was possible that the two names on the manifest that matched two names on the terrorism watch list was a coincidence.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7810385&page=1
Indeed, maybe you should do an investigation of how often these mistakes occur. I had a friend who worked with the TSA and she told me it was a nearly daily occurence that was usually cleared up only with further investigation.
Air France receives many fake bomb threats in a year, so that argentinian one might also be of the kind, anyway AF 447 has been checked for it before its departure.
I have followed this incident with a great deal of interest and I believe there is a possibility that has been completely overlooked .
In fact if we stand back and take a broader view we get some hints about this tragic event.
An appropriate analogy would be standing with your nose pressed against the truck of the tree and being totally unaware of the forest.
Point one: the area of the disappearance is so remote , so difficult to reach , so hard to conduct a search, so difficult to investigate that it sort of makes me wonder , wouldn’t this be the ideal place to commit a collosal crime? No evidence. No way to retrieve evidence . Deteriorated evidence. It suggests someone could have thought this would be a place no one would ever sleuth a crime.
Point two: modern aircraft do not just fall out of the sky. Weather , systems failure , poor communication;do not create a collapse like this. Besides, communication is second nature to pilots. If they are not communicating that kinda gets my suspicion up. Something catastrophic happened on this flight and it may have been deliberate.
Point three; the bomb scare on the 27th. This really puzzled me for along time . Why would anyone phone in a bomb threat on the flight ?
Gradually I came up with two candidates to explain this fact. It requires the assumption that some one placed a call (fact) and wanted a specific outcome from the threat ,( reasoned speculation). The perpetrator wanted to create an illusion of a terrorist threat to deflect any suspicion away from a single criminal ,ie suggest a reason the aircraft disappeared .Or , and here the reasoning gets a little shaky, the perpetrator wanted to test or gauge the reaction to the threat. This would put him in the position of being able to observe and would make this an insider crime.
All of these things point or suggest ,that a criminal action could have taken place .
Sure ‘it’s all speculation but its a giant mystery at this point and no one can rule out definitely that this may have been a crime,not an accident or a terrorist act.
TO: Marie Claude
RE: That Might Explain….
….why they might not have been so thorough in their security measures.
What’s that fable about the “Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf’”? Maybe a reverse application.
RE: This Time
Yeah. “Checked”. But, as I stated earlier, what about the passengers?
Did they check for ‘Bisquick’? A match? Do we prevent people from bringing such on-board?
Or maybe someone has come up with a new ‘home-made’ IED that wasn’t on the ‘watch list’?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[In due time, all airline passengers will be required to wear paper clothing and have no carry-on lugage.]
No, the Pitot tube failure won’t cause it to go supersonic. For one thing, the engines don’t have enough thrust. For another thing, the groundspeed measurement is independent of the Pitot, and will give the pilot a heads-up that something’s wrong. Even in a storm, there’s a limit to how far apart the two can get.
“…all you need is a headwind of 200 km/h to have a realtive speed over the sound barrier…”
With all due respect, Andre, this is not correct. Aircraft fly at the same AIRSPEED regardless of WIND speed. A 200kmph headwind would not affect airspeed in the slightest, but it would take 200 kmph off the GROUNDSPEED, which has no influence of what the airframe feels anyway. That’s why your airline captain comes on the intercomm and says “Headwinds will cause us to be 30 minutes late to our destination.” The airplane is flying at the normal airspeed, but the headwind is slowing its speed over the ground. Since the distance between your departure point and your destination is stil the same, you take longer to get there.
Yes, I am a pilot.
“But, as I stated earlier, what about the passengers?”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2475712/Jet-pair-had-the-same-names.html
conspiracy theories go on :
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=6120
but
A claim of responsibility, whether spurious or genuine, is the norm following the criminal downing of an airliner.
Philip Baum of Aviation Security International said lack of a claim of responsibility did not equate to lack of foul play.
“But it would be extremely unusual for there to have been no specific threat against that aircraft beforehand or that route in general. And then to have no claim in the immediate aftermath of the attack, that tends to reduce the likelihood of foul play.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE55352620090606
To address some posts above:
The Airbus that went down on Long Island shortly after 9-11 was said to have lost it’s tail due to the pilot moving the vertical stabililizer too violently.
This relates to the Air France breakup in that the pitot tube speed readouts determine the amount of vertical stabilizer movement.
That is to say, the higher the speed, the less movement is allowed, to prevent overstressing the tail.
Wrt comment #18 about the large pieces indicating the plane came in intact at a shallow angle:
While there would indeed be tiny pieces if the plane had come in intact near vertically, due to the high speed, a mid-air breakup results in large pieces, such as the tail to flutter down whole, going slow enough not to breakup.
Some disgruntled worker brought down an Airbus Commuter near us in California at terminal velocity, and most pieces were no larger than 1 inch square.
Think I’ll revisit that disaster to check out the name of the suicidal “worker.”
…it was near San Luis Obisbo, CA, about 20 years ago, I think.
It is the rudder, not the entire stab, that moves, of course.
Some interesting links wrt that HERE
A powerful enough thunderstorm will break any airplane — including a modern Boeing or Airbus. Pilots use radar to thread their way through thunderstorms so as to avoid flying directly through a cell. They almost always succeed.
I find it inconceivable that a terrorist bomb would happen to explode at the same time as the aircraft is transiting the most intense weather of the flight. It was the weather.
As many have pointed out, pitot tubes are stoneage technology – think 1910s. Modern airliners don’t fall out of the sky because the pitot ices over! Autopilots on jetliners don’t start overcompensating because the pitotstatic system fails! Gimme a break! There would be at least 3 or 4 alternative and better speed inputs, GPS, inertial, you name it. Neither do modern airliners break up because of a lightning strike, or because of severe turbulence. Even extreme turbulence – it would have to be more than a few very nasty bumps to cause a breakup.
But if we really are talking extreme turbulence, why ON EARTH would an experienced crew take the plane into a cu-nim cloud, which is the only place you would strike such turbulence . . granted you can get some pretty nasty turbulence in the vicinity of a thunderstorm, but not such as would cause a modern airliner to disintegrate – but what was the crew doing flying into such easily avoidable conditions anyway? Airliners fly through the intertropic convergence zone hundreds of time a day without falling apart.
It’s all very puzzling. An small explosion – Lockerbie in slow motion, causing a loss of control and a breakup in consequence – fits all the evidence.
#8, Marie-Claude
Snappy today, aren’t we?
My point was that the French have a serious economic interest in this not being due to an Airbus design fault. Perhaps they simply wanted to make sure that all avenues were seriously pursued. A finding that the cause was “unknown” is almost as bad as it being a design fault, especially when it appears the tail separated very much like the Long Island event.
I haven’t ascribed to any particular theory of what caused this tragedy, and I don’t see anything in my earlier post that would state that I had. I was merely commenting about the possible motives for raising the terrorism issue the way it was done.
What are the probabilities of the coincidence of two jihadi jackal f***ers setting off a bomb right as the Airbus was entering a ferocious weather cell? I think not. I still think the presence of an enormous amount of jet fuel on the ocean is powerful evidence that there was no explosion. At that altitude, an explosion surely would have consumed most of the jet fuel.
Absent the black boxes’ information, we are not going to know anything for certain.
The other thing is the fact that there are a lot of Islamic terrorists in South America and they probably travel to Europe with regularity.
“My point was that the French have a serious economic interest in this not being due to an Airbus design fault.”
how comes ?
There are enough airbus sold in the world to attest that this is a good plane
and where did find this fantasy ?
french pilots unions were the first to set the ultimatum to the Cie, that they would not fly on a plane that hadn’t its sensors removed, in all the papers !
now check the stats, which plane had the most crashed ?
http://www.airfleets.net/fr/crash/stat_plane.htm
Most of the technology used in aircraft is locked in to the state of the art of 1932. Jet engine technology is locked into about 1952. The laws and international agreements controlling this are political entities carved in granite. Do not expect too much from newer electronic devices. “Safety Of Flight” requirements do not change at all. The pitot tube is a piece of metal, probably stainless steel, that looks a lot like a piece of electrical conduit. The electric heater inside keeps it at a couple of hundred degrees. De-icing equipment is normally on wing leading edges and maybe around jet engine intakes. If the possible icing conditions were as bad as has been suggested, maybe the fuselage and tail surfaces where there is no deicing built up thick ice. That could make the airframe unflyable very quickly. Ice may have formed on wings due to strange turbulence from flying at difficult angles of attack thereby destroying the lift properties of the airfoils. Center of Gravity of an airplane is critical to super-critical. Tail heavy planes stall and try to go through impossible gyrations. Try it with a little paper airplane. Make one that flies adequately; then add some weight (paperclips?) to the tail and watch what it does. Aerodynamic forces could have taken the Airbus apart at altitude and the pieces found could have fluttered down to the sea. The big pieces are missing and may well have been shattered into small fragments on impact that quickly sank. There are cases on record of airplane crashes where the plane was observed to dive into the ocean and vanish almost instantly. Damage to the structure allows air to escape very quickly and aircraft as least as big as twin-piston-engined business planes have been later found mostly in one chunk. Big thunderstorms and squall lines have been the bane of all aviation since there were airplanes. Some things never really change. Hopefully the unmanned deep submersible subs will find the Air France wreckage and be able to take meaningful pictures.
Airbus, last I checked, was 100% owned by EADS. France has a significant holding in EADS (last I saw, the Government owned 15%). As a major shareholder, I’d think they might have an economic interest in keeping Airbus afloat.
The Brits sold quite a few de Havilland Comets. It took years for the design flaw to become apparent… and even though it got fixed, nobody every quite trusted the Comet again. I don’t think that de Havilland ever really recovered from that lack of trust, either.
Bill #35:
Yes, in theory “a powerful enough thunderstorm will break any airplane” – blunder into an incredibly violent cu-nim cloud, full of extreme turbulence, and you can’t blunder out again, yes, in theory you could break up the airplane.
But it depends on a combination of factors that are extremely unlikely. A highly experienced crew (like this crew) with a well-resourced airline blundering into the middle of a thunderstorm cloud is such a rare occurrence as to be virtually unknown. Then, of course the stormcloud that the aircraft has blundered into has to be powerful enough to break up the aircraft – in itself, no foregone conclusion. Plenty of pilots have blundered into cu-nim clouds in the last 100 years, in aircraft much less robust than modern airliners, with only their pride damaged
No, it doesn’t add up.
36. lefroy…
You either didn’t read, or ignored, some of the comments.
Pitot tubes may be 1910 technology, but these were connected to state of the art computerized rudder travel limiters, as my link @ #34 points out.
Experienced Crews thread their way through such storms using onboard weather tracking radar.
(which would be lost in the massive electrical system failure)
—
“There would be at least 3 or 4 alternative and better speed inputs, GPS, inertial, you name it.”
-
No, lefroy, YOU name it!
None of your suggestions could give the true AIRSPEED, which is what is relevant, and crucial, wrt to keeping the airplane aloft, in one piece.
Even in this age of high tech, sometimes we still must rely on “ancient tech” like pitot tubes, and are still at times at the mercy of mother nature.
Think.
Marie Claude,
That is a rather misleading link!
One might conclude the 737 is an accident waiting to happen, when in fact the chart is only a reflection of the overwhelming popularity/number of 737′s in service.
A useful and honest chart would relate the number of accidents to miles flown/number of airframes in use/number of flights.
—
As is, the chart is an advertisement for the 737, for those who know how to read it.
There would be at least 3 or 4 alternative and better speed inputs, GPS, inertial, you name it
GPS measurees speed relative to the ground and that is only meaningful in order to know if you have enough fuel. Air speed is what matters for the purpose of keeping the plane airborne or not exceeding the spped it she can safely withstand. Hint: if you have a 100mph tail wind and your speed relative to ground is 100mph (ie 0mph air speed) you are going to fall even if your plane is supposed to stay airborne at 50mph
#42 lefroy
The strength of thunderstorm cells is a bell curve. Yes, you are right, airplanes have blundered into cumulonimbus cells many times and flown out. That doesn’t mean that eventually, one won’t bring an airplane down. Gust limits for a particular airplane are a known quantity which, if exceeded, will break something. And nature is capable of producing those gusts.
And I’m not sure I’d call modern airliners “robust” — I’m looking at Boeing 737 document that says its flight maneuvering load limit is +2.5 g with flaps up (even less with flaps down) which is considerably less than a Cessna. Now a military fighter would be a different story — they are built to take much higher loads.
Even though you sometimes are working through professional disagreements and disputes, I appreciate the comments from pilots and others with aviation connections. Always learn a few things.
F-16 and Pilot in Separate High G Conditions
There were two sites that imediately blamed it on global warming and more severe weather that is caused by the warmiing.
This was before they even had a hndle on the location.
From what I have flown in and my friends that build 4 brands of planes in my back yard, I do not see a storm destroying the plane in the air. I also do not see pilots not knowing what they were flying into. The pluged pitot tube is a theory but there are other systems that measure speed.
38. fred: “I still think the presence of an enormous amount of jet fuel on the ocean is powerful evidence that there was no explosion. At that altitude, an explosion surely would have consumed most of the jet fuel.”
An explosion could happen without any effect on the fuel. The fuel is stored in the wings, and all it takes to bring down an airliner is a hole in the side of the fuselage. The resulting depressurization would bring the plane down smartly – with all its fuel and now-dead passengers & crew still on board. Remember the “Shoe Bomber”? He was part of an islamic research group trying to figure out how to do just this very thing.
One very good reason for not claiming credit if it was terrorism (and I have no opinion one way or the other on whether it was; not enough data): if they don’t figure out why it went down, or attribute it (in good faith) to some other cause, the perps would now be reasonably confident they have a system that could be simultaneously deployed and used on, say, 50 aircraft. They get a test run without tipping their hand.
TERRORISM CANNOT BE BEATEN IN FEDERAL COURT
Obama is following the failed Clinton model for purely ideological reasons.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/06/fighting-terrorism-with-justice-system.html
don’t search further on, the very antisemits are the FWENCH
at least it’s what it is said here
http://tinyurl.com/lkua6r
“Airbus, last I checked, was 100% owned by EADS. France has a significant holding in EADS (last I saw, the Government owned 15%). As a major shareholder, I’d think they might have an economic interest in keeping Airbus afloat.”
http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2007/september/tradoc_136046.pdf
uh I forgot to check for the army and the Nato members (before that France came in) who are forced to buy normalised American’s
yeah Airbus, Northrop Grumman win Air Force tanker contract, too bad it costed less than Boeing as a finished product,d’ya know that most of the Boeing pieces are manufacured in Europe ? and thus increase the cost of manufacturing a Boeing ? Nevermnd the army, Nasa… will pay the maximum, some kind of state disguised sponsoring ! but isn’t it funny that Boeing made all that noise against the army purchase of Airbus Tankers ? that the army wanted so dearly ! but cancelled, ya ought to buy american and sponsorise it !
so don’t tell me that France hides some infos about a defectuous product ! (anyway it’s an european consortium, then again did the Brits, the german, the spanish hide some truths ?
the post #53 unfortunately fell in the wrong place it was ment in the above thread about anti, anti etc..
As an aero engineer and ex-military pilot, I’m going 90% probability with the terrorist/sabotage angle, mainly because there were no pilot radio transmissions, even as ACARS reports were going out.
CUBA: Your are correct. No one claimed jack after Pan Am was bombed over Lockerbie. The bomb was supposed to go off over the ocean but Pan Am left late.
If Air France let people on board who were listed as terrorists then either it was an inside job or something is very lax with security.
I feel so sorry for those who were killed and their families.
Here’s hoping that they find the black box. I hope it was not terrorism, but today’s world is so nuts that it might have been.
There’s a new report out of Brazil that they found 16 naked bodies. This strongly suggests that the plane suffered structural failure at altitude.
The fly-by-wire failure theory can be put to bed. This leaves four possibilities:
1) A bomb.
2) A spontaneous structural failure
3) An extreme hail event
4) Spooky unexplained explosion a la TWA 800
Just to refresh everyone’s memory, there never was a definite determination of the cause of TWA 800. The official report mumbled something about an electrical short, but it never actually claimed that to be the certain cause. To this day, there’s no certain explanation.
If I had to bet money, I know which one I’d bet on.
http://bit.ly/oP0S1
no explosion according to experts, but a sudden fall
«J’ai vu la paroi qui sépare l’endroit où se trouve l’équipage pour préparer les repas et le compartiment des passagers, a confié au journal l’ex-pilote. Des fauteuils y étaient fixés. Ce qui est curieux, c’est que ces fauteuils doubles, utilisés exclusivement par l’équipage étaient repliés. Ils sont bien plus fins que ceux des passagers et sur les photos, on voit les ceintures de sécurité qui pendent. Cela suggère que l’équipage circulait dans les couloirs de l’avion. En cas de signal d’alerte ou de l’imminence d’un risque quelconque, l’équipage serait resté assis à sa place». «Ils n’ont eu le temps de rien faire», a souligné Ari Germano, qui a aussi reconnu une malette orange intacte de kit de premiers secours.”
Not correct, Marie Claude…
What they said is that they haven’t SEEN evidence of fire or explosion on board. They have recovered little of the aircraft, and a small explosion in a critical area could have brought the plane down. On the other hand, sudden loss of the vertical and horizontal stabilizers (à la Long Island) could have quickly brought the plane down.
The “sudden fall” reported by the automatic system is only speculation… There was a quite rapid loss of cabin pressure, that was reported automatically as a “rapid loss of cabin-altitude” The plane could have remained at the same real altitude, but because the structure was compromised it lost pressure inside the aircraft.
Bottom line… we just don’t know what happened on-board, and won’t really know until the flight recorders are (we hope) recovered and analyzed.
If this was an act of terror, then it’s a perfect crime, with a crime scene that will never be truly investigated. That’s the problem with massive explosions and suicide bombers, there’s not enough left to piece together the entire crime. I will say that there has been no publicly acclaimed chatter regarding this flight. But you also have to consider that Obama is somewhat of a loose cannon and the people in charge of these missions don’t know which way he will jump in terms of control or retaliation. Perhaps this was just a shot across the bow to France to allow more sharia law and more immigration of radical Muslims into the country. Or maybe it was just bad luck.
We will never know.
THEY FLEW RIGHT INTO A STORM AND THE PLANE CAME APART WHEN THEY DISREGARDED THE AUTOPILOT. THE FROZEN PITOT TUBES CONTRIBUTED TO THE PILOT’S LACK OF CARE. AFTER ALL, ARE WE TO BELIEVE THAT THE TERRORISTS KNEW 2 WEEKS AHEAD (WHEN THE BOMB THREAT CAME IN) THAT THERE WOULD BE HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ON THE NIGHT OF 447′S FLIGHT? GIMME A BREAK. EVEN SHERLOCK HOLMES WOULD LAUGH AT THAT ONE. REGARDING ISLAMIC SOUNDING NAMES, FACT IS MUSLIMS VERY COMMONLY HAVE THE SAME FIRST TWO NAMES AS DO CHRISTIANS, IT IS THE THIRD THAT INDICATES FAMILY. SO ANOTHER THEORY SQUASHED.
the story became headline news around the globe.At first there was no crash site, which only enhanced the mystery.French investigators wanted to make the story headline news.terrorism is cloeslly.
this is tragid.