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Air France groundings stemmed from mistakes



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 2nd, 2004, 04:21 PM
James Anatidae
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Default Air France groundings stemmed from mistakes

Wow, another slamdunk for Homeland Security.

---
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ty_aviation_dc
PARIS, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Air France's grounding of three transatlantic
flights over Christmas was a mistake, based on FBI information that in one
case confused a child's name with a suspected terrorist, the Wall Street
Journal Europe said Friday.

Citing French officials, the newspaper said the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation gave French police on December 22 a list of six suspects'
names and information indicating militants linked to al Qaeda were planning
to hijack an Air France jet.

French officials said that when French agents detained the passengers on the
Paris-Los Angeles flights with names matching those on the list, Air France
found the name matching that of the head of a Tunisian-based terror group
was a child.

Another "terrorist" was a Welsh insurance agent while a third was an elderly
Chinese woman who once ran a restaurant in Paris, the newspaper said. The
other three on the list were French citizens.

A spokeswoman at the French Interior Ministry said: "Some names were checked
and they did not correspond to the people."

However, a source close to French investigating judges handling terror cases
told Reuters the newspaper report could not be true, because U.S. terrorism
investigators had never given French authorities passenger names, only
flight numbers.

French officials cited in the newspaper said questioning in front of U.S.
transport officials revealed no sinister plots.

On December 24, Air France cancelled six flights between Paris and Los
Angeles on December 24 and 25 at the request of the French government, which
had received information from the United States of a "credible threat" to
the carrier.

The U.S. government raised its security alert to the second highest level,
code orange, before Christmas, and imposed temporary flight restrictions
over New Year over New York, Las Vegas and other U.S. cities that might be
terror targets.

U.S. and French officials on Thursday and Friday confirmed that U.S. F-16
fighter jets were escorting some Air France flights over U.S. air space over
the New Year period for fear attackers might try to crash them into American
targets.

"There is no specific threat (against France) but simply the awareness of a
terrorist threat which exists globally and can strike at any time," French
Foreign Ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous told reporters on Friday.


  #2  
Old January 2nd, 2004, 04:49 PM
Mike Cordelli
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Default Air France groundings stemmed from mistakes

Like terrorists would get on a watch list, then fly under their own names.
Duh.

How could they not have given them the names? They didn't question
everybody on the plane for hours and hours, just the people they were
suspected. Of course they had the names, or they couldn't question and
release them.



"James Anatidae" wrote in message
...
Wow, another slamdunk for Homeland Security.


However, a source close to French investigating judges handling terror

cases
told Reuters the newspaper report could not be true, because U.S.

terrorism
investigators had never given French authorities passenger names, only
flight numbers.



 




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