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Posted on 03/12/2004 8:23:06 PM PST by thecabal
By ERIC HANSON
No usable voices were found on the cockpit recorder of a helicopter that crashed in the Gulf of Mexico last week after leaving Galveston for an oil-drilling ship, federal officials said Tuesday.
The voice recorder was recovered Saturday from the sea floor and taken to Washington, D.C., where experts hoped it would provide clues about the cause of the crash that killed 10 people.
The final two bodies were recovered Monday night by searchers in the area where other bodies had been found, about 70 miles south of Galveston. The bodies were taken to the Galveston County medical examiner's office in Texas City.
Autopsies showed all 10 died from blunt force trauma, said Dr. Stephen Pustilnik, chief medical examiner.
Officials said the bodies of Jason Petitjean, 34, of Rayne, La., and Jeff Langley, 42, of Kountze, were found on the sea floor near the area where aircraft debris had been found.
The bodies of all 10 people on board the Sikorsky 76-A helicopter, owned by Alaska-based Era Aviation, have been found.
The aircraft, carrying two crew members and eight passengers and chartered by Unocal, left Galveston's Scholes International Airport about 6:45 p.m. March 23. One of the eight passengers was a Unocal employee, and the other seven were contractors. They were headed to an offshore drilling ship near South Padre Island.
At 7:23 that evening, a company dispatcher tried to contact the aircraft by radio but received no response.
An air and sea search-and-rescue operation was launched and floating wreckage was found March 24. Later that day, four bodies were found floating in the water about 70 miles south of Galveston. Four more were discovered Friday morning on the sea floor in the aircraft wreckage.
Along with oil/gas.
Also, a big US presence, and their president, Islam Karimov is a well known hardass when it comes to Saudi funded jihadis in his country.
Thai Militants Steal Huge Explosive Cache
BANGKOK, Thailand, March 31 (UPI) -- Militants staged an armed raid on a quarry in southern Thailand and stole more than a ton of explosive fertilizer, dynamite and detonators, the BBC reported.
The attack by 10 masked men took place in Yala province, one of three mainly Muslim states under martial law since unrest started in January.
After tying up two security guards, 10 masked men took 1.4 tons of ammonium nitrate, commonly used as a fertilizer, 58 sticks of dynamite and 180 detonators, police said Wednesday.
Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula, said he feared the militants would attack tourist destinations during April's water festival, known as Songkran.
"I suspect that the culprits behind this heist are aiming to strike before or during Songkran in order to terrify tourists and make a strong impact on the tourism industry," he said.
Saturday, a motorcycle bomb exploded outside a tourist bar in the town of Sungai Kolok, in Narathiwat province. About 30 people were injured, including a number of Malaysian tourists.
I haven't heard of John Bolton before, but I hope that someone is listening to him and his reports about Cuba.
U.S. Official Says Cuba Still 'Terrorist Threat'
By Rafael Lorente South Florida Sun-Sentinel
WASHINGTON — Repeating and strengthening previous allegations about Cuba's alleged weapons-of-mass-destruction program, a Bush administration official yesterday told Congress in written testimony that the island "remains a terrorist and (biological weapons) threat to the United States."
John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said there is a strong case for believing Cuba has a biological weapons research-and-development program. He made the allegations in a 25-page written statement on the development and spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
Bolton also said Cuba has successfully hidden details of its weapons program, thanks to information passed to Havana by convicted spy Ana Belen Montes, the former senior Cuba analyst for the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. Montes is serving 25 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to spying in 2002.
Montes "participated in interagency coordination of a national intelligence estimate on (biological weapons) and passed some of our most sensitive information about Cuba back to Havana," Bolton's written testimony said.
"Additionally, Montes' espionage materially strengthened Cuba's denial and deception efforts; the data Montes passed gave Havana ample opportunity to generate controlled information that could, via defectors and émigrés, reach Washington."
Bolton never verbalized his Cuba allegations during remarks before the House Committee on International Relations yesterday. Instead, he answered questions about the threats posed by Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and Libya. Asked about his stronger comments on Cuba after the hearing, Bolton shrugged and said his written statement spoke for itself.
During testimony, Bolton said the United States has no evidence implicating senior Pakistani government officials, such as President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in taking part in the network that was selling nuclear secrets to countries such as Libya.
Bolton first made allegations about Cuba in May 2002, on the eve of former President Carter's trip to the island. At the time, Bolton's charge, which was later repeated by other officials, was much more circumscribed. He said Cuba had "at least a limited, developmental offensive biological warfare research-and-development effort." Bolton said then that Cuba was providing some of its technology to rogue states.
Cuban President Fidel Castro has denied the allegations. Carter said he never received information about the allegations as part of the preparation for his visit to the island.
A spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., ridiculed Bolton's allegations yesterday. "Those are the usual, ridiculous lies that this man habitually makes about Cuba," said Lazaro Herrera Martinez, first secretary of the Interests Section. "It is ridiculous to say that Cuba poses a threat to the national security" of the United States.
That did seem a bit French on the first pass :-)
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