An Air France jetliner with over 200 people on board drops off of radar somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean during thunderstorms through which two Lufthansa jets had passed without incidents a half-hour earlier. For a full day, no one has any idea what happened. Nervous fliers all over America for whom this is their worst nightmare make the obligatory jokes about "the Island".
Over the next few days, attention is focused on weather conditions in the area, despite the safe passage of at least two other jets through the same storm not long before. Everyone hates flying in thunderstorms for just this reason -- the sometimes violent turbulence makes us feel as if the plane is going to break apart in midair, which investigators now think is what happened to Air france #447. But as journalist and former airline pilot Patrick Smith points out, the industry and its crews can no longer say that there is ZERO chance of weather causing a plane to crash all by itself. The chance may be infinitesimal, but it is not zero.
But can we be absolutely sure? Perhaps it's a function of no longer having George W. Bush and Dick Cheney whipping people into a frenzy o'fear 24 x 7 (though it isn't for lack of trying on Cheney's part), but the quick dismissal of sabotage when a plane very likely breaks up in midair seems odd. Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim told reporters that the presence of a 12-mile oil slick "could" defuse (heh) the possibility of midair explosion. That would seem to be relatively compelling evidence against sabotage, but there is one little nagging thing that makes me wonder: It seems that France just opened up a military base in Abu Dhabi less than two weeks ago. And we know just how much Al Qaeda and related groups love having Western military bases in Middle Eastern countries.
A connection between the two seems unlikely, but to rule it out entirely this quickly seems strange.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire