Pilots didn't crash EgyptAir plane - there was an explosion
Greetings from... would you believe Lakewood, New Jersey?
Remember that EgyptAir plane that
went down over the Mediterranean on a flight from Paris to Cairo back in May?
This time, it wasn't a pilot suicide that crashed the plane. It was a more mundane form of terrorism:
a bomb explosion.
Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation on Thursday said investigators
found traces of explosive materials on the remains of the victims aboard
EgyptAir Flight MS804.
...
Egyptian officials in July said the word "fire" was clearly audible from cockpit voice recorder
before the plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on May 19, killing
all 66 people aboard. The plane was traveling from Paris to Cairo.
Electronic messages sent out by the jet showed smoke detectors going
off in a toilet and in the avionics area of the plane moments before it
crashed.
The ministry said a forensic report "included a reference to find traces of explosive materials some human remains for victims of the accident."
Think about that the next time you take off from Paris. Yours truly was practically strip-searched by French 'security' while boarding a flight from Paris to the US a few months ago. I guess I fit the profile (not!).
Labels: airport security, EgyptAir, feckless French, Islamic terrorism, Paris
Will it say 'Allahuakhbar' and if it does will we be told?
The flight data recorders from EgyptAir Flight 804, which crashed into the Mediterranean on a flight from Paris to Cairo on May 19, were
recovered today, damaged but intact.
Will they show that the plane went down due to terrorism? And if they do, will we be
told the truth?
In a statement, investigators said: "The vessel's equipment was able
to salvage the part [of the recorder] that contains the memory unit,
which is considered the most important part of the recording device."
The recorder will now be taken to the Egyptian city of Alexandria to be studied.
The plane's manufacturer, Airbus, previously said that finding the
black boxes was crucial to understanding what happened when radar lost
track of MS804.
Electronic messages sent by the plane revealed
that smoke detectors went off in the toilet and the aircraft's
electrics, minutes before the radar signal was lost.
According to
Greek investigators, the plane turned 90 degrees left and then 360
degrees to the right, dropping from 11,300m (37,000ft) to 4,600m
(15,000ft) and then 3,000m (10,000ft) before it was lost from radar.
A terror attack has not been ruled out but no extremist group has claimed to have downed the plane.
Analysts say human or technical error is also a possibility.
The crew on board do not appear to have sent a distress call.
The cockpit voice recorder should allow investigators to hear what
the pilot and co-pilot were saying to each other, plus any alarms in the
background.
If the flight data recorder is recovered, it should show what the plane's computers were recording at the time.
Experts have warned that signals emitted by the data recorder are expected to expire by 24 June.
That's next Friday. Meanwhile, there are very few clues.
The little evidence so far suggests a fire broke out in the front of the
aircraft, so they will be keen to film and photograph that area. One
experienced investigator who worked on the Lockerbie bombing told me
bomb damage looks very different to fire damage.
I'm sure it does. But everything I've seen about this one seems to point to terrorism.
Labels: EgyptAir, Islamic terrorism
CNN wipes guess which country off the map for its EgyptAir coverage
As I'm sure most of you have heard already, an EgyptAir jet flying from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked this morning to Cyprus. CNN published this helpful map as part of its coverage:
After being
called on it by Twitchy, CNN decided to
identify that tiny strip of land.
Labels: CNN lies, EgyptAir, hijacking
Possible Malaysian plane debris spotted off Australia
Satellites have spotted matter that could be
debris from a missing Malaysia Airlines plane off the coast of Australia.
"New and credible information has come to light in relation to the
search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in the southern Indian Ocean,"
Abbott told the Australian parliament.
"The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) has received
information based on satellite imagery of objects possibly related to
the search."
"Following specialist analysis of this satellite imagery, two possible
objects related to the search have been identified," he said.
Abbott said he had already spoken with his Malaysian counterpart Najib
Razak and cautioned that the objects had yet to be identified.
"The task of locating these objects will be extremely difficult and it
may turn out they are not related to the search for MH370," Abbott said.
...
Australia is leading the search in the southern part of the southern corridor, with assistance from the US Navy.
The exact location of the possible debris was not clear, and Abbott did not say if it was in the search area set out by AMSA.
The area that Australia was searching on Wednesday was mostly around
2,000-3,000 meters deep, although that part of the ocean does go as deep
at 4,000-5,000 meters.
That would make recovering the "black box" voice and data recorders that
may finally unlock the mystery of what happened aboard Flight MH370
extremely challenging.
I'm still leaning toward one of the pilots deciding to commit suicide as happened with EgyptAir 990. Too bad he had to take all those people with him.
Labels: Australia, EgyptAir, Malaysia, terrorism
Egypt Air stewardesses wearing the hijab
Agence France Press reports
that some 250 of the 900 stewardesses on Egypt Air are now
wearing the hijab (Hat Tip:
MFS - The Other News).
The first flight attendants dressed in the hijab, which mainstream
clerics say is mandatory, worked on flights to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on
Saturday.
Under president Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in an
uprising in early 2011, the hijab was taboo for women in some state
institutions such as state television and the national carrier.
But
after the election of the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in June,
women in television and EgyptAir campaigned for permission to wear the
hijab, like most Muslim women in Egypt.
The company had agreed to
allow the stewardesses to wear the hijab after a strike by cabin crews
in September that also demanded better pay.
An EgyptAir official
said a foreign company has been contracted to design a cap and headscarf
for the estimated 250 stewardesses who want to wear the hijab, out of
900 women working for EgyptAir.
Will more incidents like
this be next?
Labels: EgyptAir, hijab, Islam
Change: EgyptAir takes Israel off the map
How's
this for change?
Egypt Air, the largest airline in Egypt, has removed Israel from the map – literally. On its website, Ynet has learned, Jordan's land reaches the Mediterranean Sea.
The airline's subsidiary, Air Sinai, flies to Israel regularly, but customers seeking flights to Ben Gurion National Airport will have a hard time finding them. On the map are the names of the Mideast capitals – Amman, Beirut, and Damascus – but Israel is nowhere to be found.
Egypt Air is the first large airline to have omitted the state from its map of destinations. Other airlines based in Muslim countries, such as Turkish Airlines and Royal Jordanian, include Israel and Tel Aviv on its maps.
The omission is especially odd seeing as the company continues to fly to Israel four times a week. Cairo-Tel Aviv flights were temporarily halted following the recent uprising that overturned the government, but were then reinstated.
There has also been an increase in passengers on Air Sinai's flights. According to the Airports Authority, the airline saw an increase of 27% in 2010 from the year previous.
Of course, those travelers were nearly all Israelis or foreigners and very few Egyptians. And now, with Mubarak gone, the cold peace is going to get colder.
What could go wrong?
Labels: EgyptAir, Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, maps
