| | |  Americas & Beyond | June 2009 
Terror Names Linked To Doomed Flight AF 447
 Peter Allen - Sky News
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| | Debris from Air France flight AF 447 has been recovered from the Atlantic. | |
Paris - Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged.
French secret servicemen established the connection while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31.
Flight AF 447 crashed in the mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm.
While it is certain there were computer malfunctions, terrorism has not been ruled out.
Soon after news of the fatal crash broke, agents working for the DGSE (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure), the French equivalent of MI6, were dispatched to Brazil.
It was there that they established that two names on the passenger list are also on highly-classified documents listing the names of radical Muslims considered a threat to the French Republic.
A source working for the French security services told Paris weekly L'Express that the link was "highly significant".
Agents are now trying to establish dates of birth for the two dead passengers, and family connections.
There is a possibility the name similarities are simply a "macabre coincidence", the source added, but the revelation is still being "taken very seriously".
France has received numerous threats from Islamic terrorist groups in recent months, especially since French troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan.
Security chiefs have been particularly worried about airborne suicide attacks similar to the ones on the US on September 11, 2001.
Air France Jet 'Disintegrated In Mid-Air'
Sky News
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June 11, 2009
Two pieces of new evidence have suggested that the stricken Air France jet broke up over a number of minutes, rather than in one catastrophic incident.
Firstly, bodies from Flight 447 had been picked up from locations more than 50 miles apart, the Brazilian Air Force revealed.
And secondly, a re-analysis of the plane's last automatic transmissions indicated many parts had malfunctioned before it plunged into the Atlantic.
Manufacturer Airbus told customers the investigation re-enforced the belief that the parts measuring air speed were the first to fail.
The plane's three speed sensors, or Pitot tubes, are likely to have malfunctioned four hours into the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, according to pilot union officials who examined the data.
Sky News has also learned that automated messages showed a gradual change in the cabin pressure shortly before the plane crashed.
This could suggest that the plane was either climbing or descending, and could again dismiss the idea of an explosion or a catastrophic break up.
Meanwhile, two terror suspects who died alongside 226 other passengers on the stricken jet have been ruled out as a cause of the disaster.
The two men only "shared the same name" as known Islamic radicals, posthumous security checks found.
Although their bodies have yet to be recovered, France's Interior Ministry confirmed that a "deep and wide-ranging investigation has allowed us to clear them".
The announcement came as the urgent hunt for the flight's black boxes was boosted by the introduction of a French nuclear submarine.
Emeraude will trawl 13 square miles a day, using sonar to attempt to pick up the boxes' acoustic beacons before they begin fading in three weeks' time.
Brazilian searchers in charge of recovering floating bodies and debris say the surface search area has now widened into Senegalese waters.
Ocean currents have pushed the remnants far and wide since the jet went down on June 1 on route to Charles de Gaulle International airport.
The black boxes provide the best hope of unravelling the cause of the worst aviation accident since 2001. |
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