Curious:
Fire grounded Egyptian plane at Paris airport
PARIS (AFP) - An Egyptian charter company Airbus was grounded at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport after an engine caught fire and a hole was discovered in the fuselage, a French newspaper reported Saturday. The A-320 Airbus belonging to the Egyptian Lotus Air company and chartered by the Marmara tour operator, had carried 134 French tourists and five crew members from Cairo on Thursday, the Parisien reported.
An airport official at Terminal Three observed smoke coming from a rear engine of the plane amid a strong smell of burning, the paper said. None of the normal alarms had been triggered aboard the plane, it added. A security official at the airport grounded the plane after the pilot refused to file an accident report and said he was preparing to take off again immediately for Egypt. A hole 40 centimetres (16 inches) in diameter was discovered in the fuselage while two lengths of electrical wire were found on the runway, according to the report.
A police enquiry was immediately opened, and the plane's black boxes were being examined, the Parisien said. Earlier this month, an Egyptian Flash Airlines Boeing 737 crashed in the Red Sea, killing all 148 on board, including 134 French nationals. French Transport Minister Gilles de Robien has since called for the creation of a "security label" for charter companies used by tour operators, which would identify those charter firms offering the best safety guarantees.
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/breakingnews/view.asp?msgID=4536Libya Nuclear Components Said Headed for U.S.
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Acting swiftly to ensure Libya's pledge to give up nuclear weapons is implemented, the Bush administration may bring to the United States as early as next week centrifuges and nuclear material at the heart of Tripoli's program, senior U.S. officials say.
Documents and drawings from the Libyan program arrived in Washington on Friday. Centrifuges, uranium hexafluoride and other nuclear-related equipment "are in the next round, probably next week," one official told Reuters.
Most, if not all, of the nuclear components will go to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the U.S. Department of Energy (news - web sites)'s largest science and energy laboratory.
"We're trying to get the most proliferation-sensitive stuff out early," the U.S. official said.
Another U.S. official added: "We're going to take the stuff out (of Libya). We're going to have it in the United States. We're going to own it, the nuclear stuff."
At least for now, there is no plan to take any of Libya's weapons-related material to Britain, officials said.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi (news - web sites) pledged on Dec. 19 to abandon efforts to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in a surprise deal with old adversaries Washington and London.
But a dispute erupted between the Americans and the International Atomic Energy Agency -- the U.N. watchdog that usually has the job of overseeing dismantling of weapons of mass destruction programs -- over the IAEA role in Libya.
Last Monday, IAEA chief Mohamed Elbaradei said he had agreed with U.S. and British officials that his agency would verify Libya's dismantling by U.S. and British experts.
COMPETING ROLES
But U.S. officials insisted the IAEA role will be secondary. "The IAEA can come and watch while we're doing it and say, 'yes indeed (the weapons-related items) were moved from Tripoli to the United States,"' one U.S. official said.
"But this is our agreement with the Libyans -- and we're going to implement it," he said.
U.S., British and IAEA inspectors were in Libya this week beginning the process of removing the weapons.
Some of Tripoli's chemical arms may be brought to the United States for analysis. However, for safety reasons, most of the material will be destroyed on site in Libya, officials said.
Libya denies it has a biological weapons program but U.S. officials want to verify the claim with scientists.
If biological capability is discovered, that too would probably be destroyed on site in Libya, officials said.
The Washington Post reported in Saturday's editions that Libya's quest for atomic weapons was aided by a sophisticated nuclear black market that offered weapons designs, real-time technical advice and thousands of sensitive parts -- some apparently manufactured in secret factories.
Quoting diplomats and experts, the newspaper said the scale of the black-market operation exceeds anything seen before and it was undetected by western intelligence until recent months.
On Friday, the IAEA said nuclear arms designs were found in Libya and put under U.N. seal before transport to Washington.
The IAEA has said a Libyan bomb was years away, while U.S. and British officials said it was more imminent.
U.S., British and IAEA experts agreed, however, that Libya launched a serious and aggressive campaign to acquire the capability and know-how to enrich uranium for use in weapons.
"They've got a lot of stuff," one U.S. official said. He added that the next transfer from Libya to the United States will include "centrifuges, uranium hexafluoride, various machines and associated (nuclear program) equipment."
A centrifuge is a rapidly rotating cylinder that can be used to enrich uranium for use as nuclear bomb fuel. Uranium hexafluoride is a gas used in that process.
Libya's August 2003 admission of responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing (news - web sites) and its December vow to abandon WMD have set the stage for a possible end to U.S. economic sanctions.
Lifting sanctions would let U.S. oil companies resume work in Libya abandoned when sanctions forced them out in 1986.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=4&u=/nm/20040124/ts_nm/nuclear_libya_usa_dc16" hole in the fuselage and wire on the runway!!!! And he didn't want to file an accident report and take off again. What is going on with Egyptian pilots, are they all on a suicide mission suddenly??
This wire can't just have fallen off there. I would think if he had flown in that way there should have been a difference in the way this plane flew. A pilot can tell the smallest change in the way his plane handles.
It's too bad the news media had gone to sleep. Right now MSNBC has on Joey Buttafuco (yuck), and Fox is back on with their election 2004.....snoooooooooozzzzz. I have been driven lately to CNN (ugh) for news from around the world.
Odd, the Egyptian government said mechanical failure about 990 too...
Time to revisit this section of a WND article (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29893
One of the worst air disasters in recent history, Egypt Air Flight 990 crashed into the Atlantic shortly after takeoff from New York in October 1999, killing 217.
Two-and-a-half years later, the National Transportation Safety Board finally reached the same conclusion last March that virtually everyone else had immediately after the crash ? that the plane's Egyptian copilot, Gameel El-Batouty, had cut power to the engines and intentionally sent the plane plummeting into the ocean, killing all aboard.
But the government panel declined to suggest a motive, except to speculate that El-Batouty might have "committed suicide."
Suicide? To most, "mass murder" or "terrorism" would better describe the wanton annihilation of hundreds of innocent people. Yet, despite the fact the copilot had calmly repeated over and over the Arabic phrase "tawkalt" ? meaning "I rely on Allah" ? for almost a minute and a half during his deed ? and that such behavior, according to the report, "is not consistent with the reaction that would be expected from a pilot who is encountering an unexpected or uncommanded flight condition" ? the federal report steered clear of suggesting jihad as a motive.
Egyptian reaction to the report was adamant: The plane's failure was mechanical and the American report was a craven attempt to protect Boeing, the aircraft's manufacturer. "Committing suicide is not a trait that Egyptians and Muslims are known for," commented the head of the Egyptian pilots association.
But Jim Brokaw, who lost his father and stepmother in the crash and is now president of Families of Egypt Air 990 Inc., said it was clear the copilot was responsible. "American families regret that Egypt continues to resist this unavoidable conclusion, even after the events of Sept. 11," he said, according to the Associated Press. "We call upon President George W. Bush to move beyond his predecessor's failure of leadership in this matter, and ensure that a full criminal investigation takes place."
But there will likely be no criminal investigation. The perpetrator is already dead, and "jihad" is not considered a motive. So what's the point?
If the obvious conclusion is off-limits, what possible motive is left to explain the calm taking of 217 lives? The best the Los Angeles Times could come up with was the suggestion that El-Batouty might have been taking revenge against an Egypt Air executive who was aboard the flight.