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France Plays Down Claim Attack Caused Plane Crash
Reuters ^
| 1/5/04
| Opheera McDoom
Posted on 01/05/2004 12:39:33 PM PST by TexKat
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - France said on Monday it attached little credence to a previously unknown Islamic group's claim to have brought down a plane that crashed off Egypt, killing 133 French tourists and 15 other people.
Egypt again defended the safety record of Flash Airlines, operators of the Boeing 737 that plunged into the Red Sea on Saturday, but Switzerland issued a fresh statement that it had banned the Egyptian company from its airspace on safety grounds.
French civil aviation authority head Michel Wachenheim said France's own checks on the doomed plane had showed "nothing abnormal."
An anonymous caller claiming to represent a Yemen-based group called Ansar al-Haq (Followers of the Truth) told an international news agency the group had downed the plane and would also attack Air France planes unless the French government dropped plans to ban Islamic headscarves from state schools.
Although France says no conclusions can be made on why the plane crashed until all the facts are known, French Justice Minister Dominique Perben said: "On the basis of the information in my possession, (the claim) is not very credible."
The Egyptian government has ruled out an attack on the charter plane, which crashed shortly after take-off from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh bound for Cairo and Paris.
FLIGHT RECORDERS MAY HOLD THE KEY
French officials said the plane's two flight recorders, which could hold the key to explaining why it crashed, had not been located yet. The so-called "black boxes" record technical data about the flight and conversations between the pilots.
French experts had to delay plans to use a submersible robot to search for the flight recorders from the wreckage of the plane, now lying in deep water off Sharm el-Sheikh.
"The robot arrived yesterday...but it takes time to prepare the specialist equipment and coordinate and organize with the teams," said France's ambassador to Egypt, Jean-Claude Cousseran.
Rescue teams have found body parts and wreckage but no survivors.
Swiss authorities said on Monday they had found two Flash aircraft unsafe in 2002, raising the possibility that one was the plane that crashed on Saturday.
In Cairo, Flash officials were not immediately available for comment on the Swiss statement.
But they have said the doomed plane was one of only two that Flash has operated in recent years, including all of 2002, although Swiss officials were unable to confirm positively that it was one of those they had inspected.
Switzerland said it had inspected one of Flash's aircraft in April 2002 and found various problems, including missing navigation documents, fuel reserves not calculated to international standards and maintenance deficiencies.
The Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation said an inspection of a second Flash aircraft in October 2002 had revealed "essentially the same defects."
After Flash failed to provide sufficient proof the defects had been remedied, it was barred from landing in Switzerland a few days later, the office said.
Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Ahmed Mohamed Shafiq Zaki said earlier on Monday the Swiss had let a Flash plane take off from Zurich with 148 Swiss tourists in October 2002 after giving the plane a safety check.
"That means it was 100 percent safe," he said.
(Reporting by Opheera Mcdoom, additional reporting by Amil Khan and Thierry Leveque in Paris)
TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: ansaralhaq; eygpt; flashair; flashairlines; france; fsh604; planecrash; sharmelsheikh; terrorism
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1
posted on
01/05/2004 12:39:33 PM PST
by
TexKat
To: TexKat
"Opheera McDoom"?
2
posted on
01/05/2004 12:40:55 PM PST
by
BenLurkin
(Socialism is Slavery)
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3
posted on
01/05/2004 12:42:35 PM PST
by
Support Free Republic
(Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
To: BenLurkin
That is quite a moniker isn't it. Kinda rolls off the tongue...By Opheera McDoom...
4
posted on
01/05/2004 12:44:03 PM PST
by
Damocles
(sword of...)
To: TexKat; Lazamataz; Mia T; Bigg Red; Nita Nupress; doug from upland
The chance of this crash
NOT BEING caused by a terroristic act is about the same as the chance that Vince Foster drove his own car to Fort Marcy Park!
The same chance that Janet Reno does not like young girls, the same chance that Hillary is not a control freak.
Please!!
5
posted on
01/05/2004 12:46:31 PM PST
by
thesummerwind
(Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes)
To: BenLurkin
Amil Khan
But Immanuel Kant
6
posted on
01/05/2004 12:48:15 PM PST
by
billorites
(freepo ergo sum)
To: TexKat
Shades of slick willie. We'll just pretend the center fuel tank blew up.
7
posted on
01/05/2004 12:48:56 PM PST
by
OldFriend
(Always understand, even if you remain among the few)
To: TexKat
Preliminary data I heard this morning was that no engines were running upon impact. Anyone else hear this?
8
posted on
01/05/2004 12:49:56 PM PST
by
ZGuy
To: thesummerwind
I would think they would have timed the crash for someplece besides the RED SEA for maximun damage
9
posted on
01/05/2004 12:51:28 PM PST
by
uncbob
To: TexKat
France's own checks on the doomed plane had showed "nothing abnormal"."nothing abnormal" -- except this time around the plane was a target!!!!
10
posted on
01/05/2004 12:53:59 PM PST
by
thesummerwind
(Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes)
To: TexKat
Who to believe?
French? Muslims?
To: uncbob
I would think they would have timed the crash for someplece besides the RED SEA for maximun damagepoor planning or expediency........what do you expect of ragheads?
12
posted on
01/05/2004 12:55:52 PM PST
by
thesummerwind
(Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes)
To: TexKat
God forbid the French might have to accept that they're in the same boat with us and might need to be more proactive against militant Muslims. You can be sure that if there's any evidence that it was a terrorist attack, the French will do what they do best: bury the evidence and crawl under a rock. If Paris went up in a mushroom cloud, I'd only be able to muster up limited pity for those arrogant milquetoasts.
To: truth_seeker
tough decision........like trying to decide between muave and apricot.
14
posted on
01/05/2004 12:58:20 PM PST
by
thesummerwind
(Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes)
To: uncbob
I would think they would have timed the crash for someplece besides the RED SEA for maximun damage I think that 140 plus body parts floating around at sea is maximum enough for me. And then you realize we are not dealing with rational people here.
We can't wear our scarves, okay then we will blow you out of the skys.
15
posted on
01/05/2004 1:04:04 PM PST
by
TexKat
(Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
To: TexKat
Seems to me that you're playing Russian Roulette when you fly with Flash Airlines. I bet the lily-livered French were too scared of a violent Muslim backlash (is there any other kind?) to tell the Egyptians to either fix their crappy planes or not to fly to France.
To: thesummerwind
Agree. These innocent paasengers were most likely the victims of Islamic terrorists.
From Le Figaro--the victims. Entire families perished.
Des familles entières ont péri
La plupart des victimes du vol FSH 604 habitaient la région parisienne. Les autres passagers demeuraient à Grenoble, en Normandie, en Loire-Atlantique, dans la région de Toulouse ou de Marseille. Tous avaient fêté le nouvel an au soleil, souvent en famille.
Philippe Fouchard, professeur émérite à l'université Paris-II, spécialiste de droit privé dans le domaine de l'arbitrage demeurant à Talant, dans la banlieue dijonnaise, a péri dans l'accident avec sa femme, quatre de leurs enfants et cinq de leurs petits enfants.
De même, à Formigny (Calvados), six personnes d'une même famille ont trouvé la mort. Face à la petite mairie aux volets clos, le drapeau tricolore était en berne, hier. Le premier hommage de cette commune de 250 habitants à son maire, Michel Lamy, un agriculteur de 41 ans, disparu avec sa femme, son frère et ses trois enfants. Devant le bâtiment du gros corps de ferme des Lamy, une petite Peugeot noire arbore un A rouge : la fille aînée, Maud, 18 ans, venait de décrocher son permis de conduire.
Dans le département voisin de l'Orne, la commune de Préaux-du-Perche déplore la perte de la famille Bisson : Jean-Marie, 46 ans, avait repris, avec sa femme Marie-Danielle, 44 ans, une exploitation de pisciculture de truites. «C'était la première fois que toute la famille partait en vacances à l'étranger», explique un voisin. Avec leurs parents ont péri Romain, 19 ans, étudiant en BTS et pompier volontaire, Anthony, 16 ans, ainsi que les jumelles, Suzy et Sarah, 15 ans. À l'exception du fils aîné, toute la famille faisait partie de la fanfare locale : les musiciens rendront hommage dimanche prochain à la famille disparue.
A Grenoble (Isère), les voisins de la famille Garrigue se sont réunis, hier après-midi, dans une maison de leur lotissement pavillonnaire pour évoquer la mémoire d'Alain, 42 ans, Christine, 40 ans, Marjorie, 8 ans, et Simon, 11 ans. Le père était ingénieur dans un centre de recherche, la mère travaillait à la chambre d'agriculture de l'Isère. Depuis deux ans, ils emmenaient leurs enfants en voyage, auparavant trop jeunes pour les suivre.
Si Muriel, la soeur de Christine, souffre à l'idée de «ne pas pouvoir récupérer les corps», elle ne se rendra pas pour autant en Égypte, car «se recueillir devant un bout de mer n'a pas d'intérêt. Les quatre en même temps, c'est dur. Connaître les causes de l'accident ne m'intéresse pas. Ce ne sera pas une consolation», dit-elle.
La ville de Lattes, dans la banlieue de Montpellier, a perdu Stéphane Alès, 52 ans, le directeur sportif bénévole de son club de football, et sa femme Christiane, institutrice d'une école maternelle. «Stéphane était un type épatant, très disponible pour les autres. Sa disparition tragique a causé un choc extrême», explique le président de l'AS Lattes, dont le match d'hier a été annulé.
Parmi les disparus figure un couple de médecins de l'hôpital de Courbevoie-Neuilly (Hauts-de-Seine). Yvon Chotard, 52 ans, était cardiologue, chef du service des spécialités médicales et président de la commission médicale des hôpitaux de Neuilly et Courbevoie. Sa femme Pascale, 53 ans, chef du service de la médecine préventive et des maladies du travail. Le couple était familier de Nicolas Sarkozy, ancien maire de Neuilly.
La ville de Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis) a perdu son maire adjoint à la démocratie locale, Michel Techi, 45 ans, professeur d'anglais. Sa compagne, institutrice et conseillère municipale, Bernadette Iseler, avait 40 ans.
***snip***
«Quand j'ai entendu l'information à la radio, je me suis dit : c'est pas possible», a raconté Mohammed Hjiaj, le neveu d'une des victimes, une Marocaine de 47 ans, Fatima Hjiaj, concierge dans le XVIIe arrondissement à Paris et mère de cinq enfants âgés de 19 à 23 ans.
«J'ai perdu ma mère il y a un mois, aujourd'hui ma tante. La série noire continue. Elle m'a laissé des messages sur mon portable me demandant de venir la chercher à l'arrivée. Elle entendait quelque chose de bizarre juste avant le décollage. Il y a eu du bruit, des cris d'enfants puis une coupure», a indiqué son neveu.
****snip****
17
posted on
01/05/2004 1:05:25 PM PST
by
Palladin
(Proud to be a FReeper!)
To: TexKat
140 plus body parts = 140 plus bodies in pieces
18
posted on
01/05/2004 1:07:33 PM PST
by
TexKat
(Just because you did not see it or read it, that does not mean it did or did not happen.)
To: TexKat
An anonymous caller claiming to represent a Yemen-based group called Ansar al-Haq (Followers of the Truth) told an international news agency the group had downed the plane and would also attack Air France planes unless the French government dropped plans to ban Islamic headscarves from state schools. Simple solution: Let the slammic chicks wear just the headscarves to school...
To: truth_seeker
What to buy? Vega or Pinto??
20
posted on
01/05/2004 1:09:06 PM PST
by
Moleman
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