Air France 447 - Casting doubt on weather as culprit (coverup?)

weather.com ^ | 6/5/09 | weather

[milwguy]

new analysis of the weather in the vicinity at the time of the crash appears to cast doubt on earlier reports that the plane encountered severe thunderstorms, lightning and wind gusts. Though there were storms, they were almost certainly less intense than those sometimes encountered above the United States, and lightning was at least 150 miles away, said Greg Forbes, severe-weather expert for the Weather Channel.

Forbes said an examination of weather data for Sunday, including satellite images, indicated updrafts of perhaps 20 mph, far from the initial reports of 100 mph.

"I wouldn't expect it to be enough to break apart the plane," Forbes said.

Meanwhile, even more doubt was placed on the lightning strike theory when the World-Wide Lightning Network (WWLLN) announced that they did not detect lightning anywhere near the suspected crash area for an hour or more on either side of the event.

[milwguy]

This should be headlines news everywhere. No huge thunderstorms like reported, no lightning anywhere near the aircraft, no 100 mph updrafts.

So this plane crashed, no wreckage has been found yet, but authorities have ruled out terrorism? Something is rotten here, and what it is has to be uncovered.

[Paladin2]

"no wreckage has been found yet"

Consistent with alien abduction.

[The Sons of Liberty]

Something is rotten here, and what it is has to be uncovered.

I agree totally. This is beginning to look more and more like a coverup.

[Cheetahcat]

Here is what bothers me the plane went down in deep water with no plausible explanation but the obvious.

[Big_Monkey]

"So this plane crashed, no wreckage has been found yet, but authorities have ruled out terrorism?

There's mixed message's coming from France. Their Defense ministry (as well as the Pentagon) says it wasn't terrorism while their Foreign ministry says nothing can be ruled out right now, including terrorism.

How anyone could rule any possible cause out this early in the investigation is baffling. How the US Pentagon could rule out terrorism (on a foreign airline, from a foreign origination to a foreign destination) is downright peculiar, and frankly uncharacteristic.

[Cementjungle]

"no wreckage has been found yet"

I suspect that traces of bomb residue found on wreckage has forced them to say no wreckage has been found.

[Dallas59]

ROP, ETA or some unknown Brazilian/French terror group?

[Westbrook]

Parana Online is reporting that the French are opening an investigation into “culpable homicide” (aka “terrorism”).

From: http://www.parana-online.com.br/editoria/pais/news/377079/

O Tribunal de Paris anunciou hoje (5) a abertura de processo por homicídio culposo sobre o desaparecimento do Airbus A330 da companhia aérea Air France,

[Paladin2]

I’ve been thinking about that and recognizing how straight forward that would be given all those swiping pads the TSA has.

[Political Junkie Too]

The problem I had with the bomb theory is, what good would a terrorist act be if nobody knew about it? Also, why France? France was a supporter of Saddam and Oil for Food.

So, is this a hijacking? Did somebody steal the plane, and perhaps kill all the passengers? For what purpose?

-PJ

[rickomatic]

Can someone refresh my memory please? Wasn’t that flight originally delayed leaving Brazil due to a terrorist threat? Now, suddenly terrorism is flatly ruled out withoug a trace of evidence?

[mad_as_he$$]

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[GonzoGOP]

France has been standing up to Iran more then we have of late. This was probably supposed to have the same effect on the EU elections this week as the train bombings in Spain did on their election.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Try to remain calm. There is no cover-up, and the French Defense Minister said today that terrorism cannot be ruled out, though there is currently no evidence pointing to it. Nobody knows yet what actually happened, and official sources have been saying from the start that weather alone would not likely have been capable of bringing the plane down. At this point, they haven’t even figured out to what extent, if any, the barrage of automated messages indicating system failures were accurate, or were the result of malfunctions in sensors. One issue with the messages is that apparently different airspeed indicators were simultaneously giving conflicting speed readings. This alone could utterly foul up the automatic control systems and/or pilots’ efforts to fly the plane manually.

[Political Junkie Too]

But if nobody claims credit for it, and the people think the plane was downed by a storm, then what good does it do? It won't affect an election like a train station bombing if it's not obvious to anyone that it was a bombing.

-PJ

[MHGinTN]

A few days before this plane went down, a threat was phoned in on an Argentine Airport flight, if memory serves.

[GovernmentShrinker]

What sort of terror group would pull this off and then not claim responsibility for it? As far as I’ve seen, there haven’t been any claims of responsibility at all, much less credible ones. And the mix of passenger nationalities and the Air France banner don’t appear to make this flight a likely terror target.

[VRWCTexan]

I read part of an interview with a pilot that has flown this aircraft model - he stated that the odds of all redundant electrical systems failing one after the other is too samll to consider (or coming apart as a result of a lightning strike) - his best estimate that best explains what is known is that it was a bomb explosion

[GovernmentShrinker]

Exactly. First, what terrorist group would choose this flight, with its diverse and overwhelmingly non-US passenger list, and Air France banner? And second, even if one could come up with a plausible answer to that difficult question, then the question of why no claim of responsibility would have to be tackled. Most likely this disaster wasthe result of some combination of weather, automated systems malfunctioning, and human error in responding to those.

[Paladin2]

A couple of days before, I believe.