Free Republic

PARIS — An Air France passenger jet traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared after its electrical systems malfunctioned during a storm with heavy turbulence on Sunday evening, and officials said Monday that a search had begun for the wreckage near a small archipelago off the Brazilian coast. “We are very worried,” said an aviation official in Paris interviewed by Agence France-Presse. “It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected.” The plane, an Airbus 330, was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members. The passengers...

They pledged to leave no man behind, so for 43 years the mystery of what happened to Huey 808 has tortured veterans of the First Air Cavalry. The helicopter and its four-man crew failed to return from a routine mission in December 1965, soon after braving enemy fire at the battle of Ia Drang, America's first great clash of arms in Vietnam. Pilots spent months scouring the jungle looking for traces of a crash site, and for years afterwards, comrades of the lost crew made trips to the steamy hill villages of the Central Highlands looking for clues to what...

The US National Archives offered a cash reward of up to 50,000 dollars Friday for the recovery of a missing computer hard drive containing sensitive personnel data from the Clinton administration. Described by the archives as a "Western Digital MY BOOK external hard drive" with a 2-terabyte storage capacity, it contained copies of backup tapes from the White House dating back to president Bill Clinton's tenure in the 1990s.

The U.S. National Archives on Wednesday said it is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a missing hard drive that contains personal information of former Clinton administration staff and visitors. The small portable hard drive was being kept as a backup, the National Archives explained in a question-and-answer document (PDF) on its Web site. It held copies of about 113 four-millimeter tape cartridges of "snapshots" of hard-drive contents of employees who left the Executive Office of the President. Because the staff maintained White House entry information and electronic address books, the external drive contains personally...

A massive amount of sensitive, national security-related information from the Clinton administration has gone missing from the national archives. The Inspector General of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) told congressional committee staffers Tuesday that a hard drive containing over a terabyte of information -- the equivalent of millions of books--went missing from the NARA facility in College Park, Md., sometime between October 2008 and March 2009. The Department of Justice and the Secret Service are conducting an investigation, but it's so far unclear whether the drive was lost as the result of a crime or an accident. That...

Etan Patz, the first missing child pictured on a milk carton, has been gone for 30 long years but has not been forgotten. Six year old Etan Patz went missing on May 25, 1979. It was the Friday before Memorial Day. He disappeared from his Soho, New York neighborhood while on his way to school. He insisted on being able to walk to the bus stop by himself just like all the other kids. Etan's parents were not keen on the idea. But, after arguing the point with Etan, his parents finally relented, and let him walk alone to the...

His was the first photo of a missing child to appear on a milk carton. Almost 30 years later, Etan Patz is still missing. Etan was 6 when he disappeared on May 25, 1979, the Friday before Memorial Day. He was on his way to school in what is now the upscale Soho neighborhood of New York. It was the first time he'd walked to the bus stop by himself. It was just a few blocks away. Etan, like any 6-year-old, argued that all of his friends walked to the bus stop alone, and his parents relented. His mother, Julie...

Fugitive murder suspect George Martin Zinkhan III dug his own grave and covered himself with debris before firing a single bullet into his head, investigators said Saturday. “A person not accustomed to the woods would not have found it,” Athens-Clarke County Police Chief Jack Lumpkin said. “The body was beneath the earth… The body was purposely concealed in a manner not to be discovered.” Searchers found two handguns in the grave. Zinkhan’s well-hidden body was discovered Saturday by cadaver dogs — an Australian shepherd and a German shepherd — at 9:50 a.m. Saturday. The civilian Alpha Search and Rescue Team...

TERRE HAUTE - Indiana State University officials hope increased public awareness will lead them to missing student Gerald Smith of Avon. Wabash Valley Crimestoppers has agreed to use its resources to spread the word about Smith's disappearance via television public service announcements, billboards and a reward of up to $1,000. In addition, the Indiana State University Foundation is accepting contributions for an additional reward fund.

Army criminal investigators are looking into the possibility that disease samples are missing from biolabs at Fort Detrick. As first reported in today's edition of The Frederick News-Post by columnist Katherine Heerbrandt, the investigators are from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division unit at Fort Meade. Chad Jones, spokesman for Fort Meade, said CID is investigating the possibility of missing virus samples from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. He said the only other detail he could provide is that the investigation is ongoing. Fort Detrick does not have its own CID office, Jones said, which is...

Police say a U.S. priest has been reported missing in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, and blood stains and a bloody knife have been found in his house. Police say a relative reported the priest missing after he failed to return to Texas over the weekend. State police in the Gulf coast state of Tamaulipas identify the missing man as Jesse Euresti, 69, but U.S. Embassy and consular personnel said they could not confirm the disappearance or the name. Police said Wednesday they found that a house in Nuevo Laredo where Euresti had been living apparently was robbed, with...

AIRMAN MISSING IN ACTION FROM THE VIETNAM WAR IS IDENTIFIED The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of a U.S. airman, missing in action from the Vietnam War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Lt. Col. Earl P. Hopper, Jr., U.S. Air Force, of Phoenix, Ariz. He is to be buried on April 3 at the National Memorial Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix. On January 10, 1968, Hopper and Capt. Keith Hall were flying an F-4D Phantom near Hanoi, North Vietnam, as...

At least $5 million, and perhaps 10 times that amount, appears to be unaccounted for in funds entrusted to U.S. District Court Judge Manuel L. Real, and the rival Filipino claimants to the account want the controversy-plagued Los Angeles judge to provide full details of what happened with their money. In a protracted legal action brought by victims of late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Real had been given control over about $34 million in assets seized from a Swiss bank account and a Panamanian shell company while the Manila government, the Philippines National Bank and individuals abused by Marcos pressed...

Attempts to free a stuck anchor caused the boat carrying four football players to turn over and capsize, according to a report released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday. According to the report, the problems for the boaters started when they attempted to pull their anchor up so they could head back to port.

PORTLAND, Ore. - One of the Northwest's most notorious unsolved crimes may have a comic book connection and while it may sound kooky, the FBI agent in charge of the case says the new clue is no laughing matter. In November 1971, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper, later mistakenly called D.B. Cooper, hijacked a Northwest Orient flight from Portland to Seattle, claiming he had a bomb. At Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes and asked to be flown to Mexico. He jumped from the plane somewhere near the Oregon state...

The owner of a Nebraska car dealership and two executives were in police custody facing theft charges Thursday after 81 cars were taken from the dealership's lot, authorities said. -snip- Police became aware of the case Tuesday, when they received a call from Toyota company officials, Spencer said. Toyota told police they had received a call that all of Legacy's new Toyotas were gone from its lot. Employees arriving at the dealership for work on Tuesday also found the three executives gone, police said. They had packed up their personal possessions. Some computers were gone, as well. Fait and Patch's...

SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. — Three Scottsbluff auto dealership executives are expected to be under arrest by this morning after they packed up their belongings, loaded 81 new vehicles onto trucks and left town. Scottsbluff police, with help from federal authorities, tracked the trio across the southwestern United States on Wednesday as many of the vehicles were sold at auctions. Felony theft charges were filed in Scotts Bluff County Court on Wednesday against Legacy Auto Sales owner Allen Patch and two of his senior managers: comptroller Rachel Fait, 37, and general manager Rick Covello, 53. Detectives located Patch, 52, at his attorney's...

David Rhodes Still Missing 11 March 2009 Few people realize that New York Times journalist David Rhodes was kidnapped in Afghanistan back in November. There were a few scattered stories early on, but big reporting apparently has been squashed. In December, during a trip with Secretary Gates, I asked a New York Times reporter if she knew the status of the situation. The story had been kept so quiet that she didn’t actually know the kidnapping had occurred. The information came to me from several sources some weeks after the kidnapping in Afghanistan. I sat on the information, but there...

Scottsbluff dealership missing three bosses, dozens of cars http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10583582 SCOTTSBLUFF, Neb. — One by one, somebody loaded new Toyotas onto trucks Monday evening from the Legacy Auto Sales dealership in Scottsbluff and drove off into the night. Dozens of cars were taken. Now plenty of people, including Scottsbluff police, want to know what's going on. That includes Legacy employee Miranda Cervantes. She discovered Tuesday morning that the dealership's owner and two other officers had disappeared without a word to the staff. Also gone were more than 80 Ford and Toyota vehicles. Employees found the desks of owner Allen Patch, comptroller...

A team of scientists is in town, helping the Seattle FBI do something it hasn't been able to do on its own. They're trying to find new evidence that will lead to one of the Northwest's most notorious fugitives. Tom Kaye's casting with cash, which tells you this is ordinary fisherman on the banks of the Columbia River. Weird science - that's probably the better way to describe the fishing expedition that's going on this week near Vancouver. Kaye is hoping his experiment can help reel in one of the biggest catches of all: the Northwest skyjacker known only as...