Air France Airbus A330 Flight 447 took in passengers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on May 31 after which it took off and later crashed in the Atlantic Ocean with all 228 passengers and crew perishing in the crash.
Although nearly all of the reports of the crash speak of computer malfunctions, numerous news outlets including the German
Bild.de, Britain's
Metro.co.uk and
Sky News have reported that two passengers with names linked to Islamic terror groups were on the lists of passengers who boarded in Rio de Janeiro, ABC News reports that American and French authorities assert that the two names which match those of terrorists was a coincidence. So a major question and piece of the puzzle behind the the Airbus crash is;
Were terrorists aboard Air France Flight 447?:
Fresh questions about the... downed Air France flight 447 continue as search crews pulled more bodies and wreckage from the Atlantic Ocean. The latest questions have emerged over the doomed flight's passenger list. A French magazine, L'Express, reported this week that two of the passengers were on a French terrorism watch list.
French and U.S. government sources, however, told ABC News that no Islamic extremists were aboard flight 447. A former senior White House official said "no names on the manifest triggered any U.S. intelligence persons of interest."
A current senior CIA officer says he hasn't seen anything suggesting that the Rio de Janeiro to Paris flight was downed by an act of terrorism. Additionally, French interior ministry spokesman Gerard Gachet denied the... report.
The French news report reported that it was possible that the two names on the manifest that matched two names on the terrorism watch list was a coincidence.
All 228 aboard flight 447 are presumed dead, after the plane disappeared from radar screens and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean between the coast of Brazil and the coast of West Africa on May 31. Last week, Brazilian military crews found passenger remains and small sections of debris floating on the ocean surface.
Some of the confusion over who was aboard the flight stems from Air France's decision to keep the manifest private. An Air France spokesperson told ABC News that French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the families of the victims that France would never release the names as a privacy concern. Most of the passengers were French and Brazilian. Flight 447 carried passengers and crew from a total of 31 different countries.
ABC News has learned that news reports in Lebanon, Morocco and Turkey have identified citizens of those countries who also perished on flight 447.
A former senior CIA official told ABC News that there is added confusion with terrorism watch lists because Muslim and Arabic names are often poorly translated by Western governments.
"Most Arabs have four names as a full name," the former official said. "But North African countries that were colonized by the French, for example, chopped the names down to two, like theirs, so they could find people. Now, they have a hard time identifying people on the list because the names are inconsistent."
Officials Not Ruling Out Terrorism
Because so little of the plane has been recovered, French officials have refused to officially rule out terrorism as the cause of the crash. However, their investigation thus far has focused on faulty wind-speed sensors on the Airbus A330 airplane. There is no evidence yet that the sensors contributed to the tragedy but initial reviews of flight data transmissions indicate the plane had electrical malfunctions as it went through a tropical storm, some 400 miles northeast of Brazil.
It is important to emphasize that in none of the reports cited was terrorism ruled out. Indeed,
the Metro.co.uk report cites the following:
A terrorist attack was 'highly likely' to be behind the Air France plane crash in the Atlantic, a pilot claimed.
The unnamed flyer said a bomb explosion on board was the probable cause, he told a French newspaper.
'I have flown these jets for Air France for more than ten years and the chances of an electrical fault seem unfeasible to me,' he added.
A bomb threat was made against an Air France plane flying from Buenos Aires days earlier, it has emerged.
A warning phone call came in ahead of take-off on Wednesday last week but a search revealed nothing.
An attack could not be ruled out because it is 'the main threat for all Western democracies' but no one had claimed responsibility, said French defence minister Herve' Morin.
