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Debris found floating in path of missing Air France jet

Search teams scanning the Atlantic Ocean found pieces of debris that may be part of the Air France plane that disappeared while flying from Brazil to Paris, military officials reported Tuesday.

The Airbus A330 was carrying 228 people when it vanished over the Atlantic Ocean after leaving Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night.

Searchers in planes spotted debris including an orange life-vest, a small white piece of metal and what is believed to be an airliner seat at about 1:30 a.m. local time (12:30 a.m. ET) Tuesday, Lt.-Col. Ricardo Dechen of the Brazilian air force told CBC News.

The debris was floating in two areas about 60 kilometres apart, said air force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral.

Dechen said an apparent oil-like residue was also on top of the water in the general area, about 650 km northeast of the Archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, where the search was initially focused. The area is about 2,400 km northeast of Rio.
No life signs

There were no signs of any lifeboats, survivors or bodies.

The air force won't be able to confirm the debris belongs to the Air France jetliner until boats arrive in the area, Dechen said. Military officials had earlier stated that boats weren't expected to reach the site until Wednesday.
Brazilian search planes have spotted possible debris from Air France Flight 447 about 650 kilometres northeast of the Archipelago of Fernando de Noronha. (CBC)

Search efforts are being relocated to that general area, Dechen said, adding that food, water, inflatable boats and supplies are also being redirected to be air-dropped into the water in case survivors are found.

The pieces were found in the flight path of the plane and in vicinity of the last place the aircraft was heard from, Dechen said.

Amaral said the place where the debris was floating suggests the plane might have tried to turn back toward Brazil.

Snip ---

'Succession of extraordinary events'

The immense area of open ocean between northeastern Brazil and western Africa has depths reaching 4,570 metres. But the technology exists to retrieve any relevant parts from the bottom of the ocean if the plane is found, Cox said.

Officials believe that "there really had to be a succession of extraordinary events to be able to explain this situation," Borloo said.

Air France received an automatic message from Flight 447 signalling an electrical circuit malfunction about four hours into the flight, at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday. The message came shortly after the flight crossed "through a thunderous zone with strong turbulence," said Air France officials.

Some officials have speculated the plane may have been struck by lightning, but aviation experts have said that should not have been enough to bring down the aircraft.

Other potential causes include shifting winds and hail from towering thunderheads, a massive mechanical failure or a combination of other factors.

Pentagon officials told The Associated Press that American authorities have not seen any evidence suggesting terrorism or foul play.

“The nature of the debris, the concentration of the debris ... all combines to prove that the debris from Air France 447 has been found,” Christophe Prazuck, a French military spokesman in Brazil, said Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.

Nelson Jobim, the Brazilian defense minister, said that “without a doubt” the debris was from the Air France plane. Military planes located the wreckage Tuesday in a three-mile strip in the ocean, as hope of finding survivors all but vanished. The debris included “an orange life vest, an aircraft seat, a drum, kerosene and oil,” the Brazilian military said.

At a press conference Wednesday at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, Paul-Louis Arslanian, who is heading the French government’s inquiry into the crash, said he hoped that a preliminary report on the disaster would be available by the end of June.

• Final messages sent from the plane suggest the jet suffered a series of failures and could have broken apart as it passed through a thunderstorm before hitting the ocean off Brazil's northern coast on Monday, officials said.

DrVolin wrote:And a pilot in Texas reported a missile near his airliner yesterday:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blog ... uston.aspx

In May 2008, a Continental Airlines pilot reported a similar incident.

“It was the same situation, almost identical,” DeFoor said. “The FBI are pulling their records on that one. It was roughly in the same area almost a year ago.”

After being absent from the public light since Saturday, Chavez spoke to the media on Tuesday afternoon while he was inspecting the construction of 1,100 government houses in Vargas state. He explained that he had received a message warning about the assignation plans from Ortega and “it was information with a lot of weight that motivated the suspension of our travels.”

“In this case the information was very precise, [it indicated] that they were going to launch one or several rockets at the Cubana airline plane that was already ready to leave from Maiquetia [airport in Venezuela],” he said, and explained that the Venezuelan presidential plane was being repaired at the time and that Cuba had lent him one of its planes for his travels. Chavez and Morales were going to travel to El Salvador together in the plane.

“The government of the United States is behind all of this. And I’m not accusing Obama. No. As Fidel [Castro] has said, I think Obama has good intentions, but beyond Obama there is a whole empire: The CIA and all its tentacles, is alive and kicking… President Obama its time to dismantle all this machinery of terror.”

He said there appeared to be no link between the alert and the crash on Monday of the Air France flight between Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Paris.

justdrew wrote:

lightningBugout wrote:

justdrew wrote:
ya know, I never considered TSOL backwards before. always distracted by the question of that the letters meant. good catch

Vol. 73/No. 22 June 8, 2009


FBI wanted Cuban 5 to become traitors
Gerardo Hernández: Fear, intimidation didn’t work,
so they put us in ‘the hole’
(feature article)

The following is the second installment of an interview with Gerardo Hernández, one of five Cuban revolutionaries who have been held in U.S. prisons on frame-up charges for more than 10 years. Saul Landau, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., who is making a documentary on the case, conducted the April 1 interview by phone. The first installment appeared in last week’s Militant. The remaining three parts will be printed the in the coming weeks.
Known internationally as the Cuban Five, Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González, and René González have been in prison since their arrest on Sept. 12, 1998. They had been gathering information on counterrevolutionary Cuban American groups that operate from south Florida with Washington’s complicity and have a history of violent attacks on Cuba.

The five were framed and convicted in 2001 on charges that included failing to register as agents of a foreign government and “conspiracy to commit espionage.” They were given sentences ranging from 15 years to life.
.....
[article footnotes]
1. A reference to Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, and others. Posada Carriles was convicted by a Venezuelan court in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner over Barbados killing all 73 people aboard. Bosch was also implicated in the attack. In a 1998 New York Times interview, Posada Carriles bragged of his involvement in a series of bombings of Havana hotels in 1997, including one that killed an Italian tourist, Fabio di Celmo. He later retracted his account, claiming he didn’t understand English well. Both Posada Carriles and Bosch today walk freely in the streets of Miami.

2. Brothers to the Rescue, headed by José Basulto, and Alpha 66 are rightist outfits based in Florida that promote violent actions against targets in Cuba. Brothers to the Rescue falsely portrays itself as a “humanitarian” aid group, but as the Cuban Five testified, was organizing armed provocations in Cuba.

Venezuelan President Denounces Assassination Plot Organized by Posada Carriles

HAVANA, Cuba, June 3 (ACN) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced on Tuesday a plan to assassinate him during a planned visit to El Salvador to participate in the inauguration ceremony of Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes last Monday.

According to Prensa Latina news agency, Chavez explained that the plan was organized by infamous international terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and it consisted in the shooting down of the Venezuelan presidential plane with one or more rockets while entering or leaving San Salvador.

The Venezuelan leader insisted that his country continues to demand the extradition of Posada Carriles, who lives in the United States.

Anti-Castro militant in Miami wants more time to prepare for trial
Jay Weaver | The Miami Herald
7:10 AM EDT, June 3, 2009

Militant Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles says the U.S. government's new charges accusing him of lying about masterminding tourist-site bombings in Cuba amount to a ''terrorism'' case, and therefore a judge should give him more time to prepare for trial.

Posada, a one-time CIA operative now living in Miami, faces trial in El Paso in August on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements.

Those charges, filed in April, stem from Posada's testimony during a government hearing to remove him from the country and his naturalization hearing to become an American citizen.
.....
As part of his defense, Posada's lawyer says he wants the government to turn over a reporter's decade-old interview tapes with Posada as well as classified documents concerning his ''long-term association with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies.''

Inspector Predicted Danger Before Buffalo Crash
Posted Jun 3, 09 11:10 AM CDT

By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: June 3, 2009

WASHINGTON — More than a year before a twin-engine turboprop flown by Colgan Air crashed on approach to Buffalo, a Federal Aviation Administration inspector complained to his superiors about the rocky start the airline was having with that model.

The FAA insists that it took Monteleon seriously, and that he was not punished for his report. Colgan, meanwhile, dismissed his claims. But early safety-board hearings into the crash that killed 50 made it clear that it was investigating the quality of the FAA’s regulation of Colgan. Monteleon believes the agency was too “cozy” with the airline.
.....
SOURCE: New York Times

rrapt wrote:Just because it hasn't been mentioned here yet...You've probably noticed some few discussions lately containing speculation that the Tiller murder and other headline grabbing stories like this one are popping up. Allegedly as a means of blanketing awareness of Cheneyco crimes, which would show up much more brightly in a news deadzone. Just sayin.

I don't necessarily endorse any opinion on this subject; it is hard to rationalise wiping out an airplane load of innocents as a distraction, but then this is a very serious game. We already know for a fact that the perps, whoever they are, are sociopaths at the very least, among other negative traits. Plus, as we see from Dickie's recent performances, desperation is looming large, so anything goes.