Results tagged “airfrance”

The five French tourists who became unwilling passengers in a high-speed chase on Tuesday when police tried to bust an unlicensed livery van at JFK are getting a great taste of American instant-celebrity. Yesterday two of the tourists attended a big press conference to publicly thank the officers involved in the incident, which began after undercover Port Authority cops spotted a hustler steering them into the unlicensed van—when one officer tried to grab the keys, the driver sped off with the newly-arrived French visitors trapped inside.

According to Sky News, "Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on board the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives... While it is certain that there were computer malfunctions, terrorism has not been ruled out...There is a possibility the name similarities are simply a 'macabre coincidence', the source added, but the revelation is still being 'taken very seriously'." In the meantime, a French nuclear submarine has joined the search for the black boxes and the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, usually a tourist destination, has been transformed into a staging ground for search-and-recovery operations.

According to French investigators, Air France Flight 447 had sent 24 error messages before disappearing over the Atlantic Ocean after departing Rio de Janeiro for Paris last Sunday. BBC News reports, "Investigators...said the plane's autopilot was not on, though they do not know if it had been switched off or was not working." Investigators also said the plane, an Airbus 330, was scheduled to have it parts of its speed sensors replaced, after Airbus had warned that there could be issues with them, but investigators also said it was "far too early to conclude" they may have been cause of the accident. The search also continues for the planes' black boxes; while ships from Brazil, France and the U.S., plus a nuclear powered sub from France, are looking for the black boxes' "pingers," which send out signals of their locations, the pingers could have been detached. Update: Brazil says two bodies were recovered where the flight is believed to have crashed.

Brazilian air force officials say that debris found in the Atlantic Ocean does not belong to Air France Flight 447, which disappeared after departing Rio de Janeiro for Paris on Sunday night. Brigadier Ramon Borges Cardoso said, "It has been verified that the material did not belong to the plane. It is a pallet of wood that is utilized for transport. It is used in planes, but on this flight to Paris, there was no wooden pallet." Additionally, the oil slick seen in the water was not from the flight either—it was larger than the amount of oil from the flight. A French official said, "The clock is ticking on finding debris before they spread out and before they sink or disappear." The cause of the plane's disappearance hasn't been determined, but Airbus warned about "malfunctioning speed indicators" yesterday. And a Spanish pilot said he saw an "intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds."

According to the AP, Air France told relatives of Flight 447 passengers that the jetliner broke apart either in mid-air or when it hit the ocean and that "they must abandon hope that anyone survived." A service was held at Notre Dame in Paris for relatives and Air France employees; French President Nicolas Sarkozy also attended. More debris was apparently found in the Atlantic Ocean yesterday, about 55 miles from the wreckage initially spotted. The NY Times reports the search for the black boxes, which transmit beeps for about 3.1 miles, may be difficult, "The ocean is more than four miles down in some parts of the area, and, while water is an excellent transmitter of sound, the sound waves are reflected at boundary layers where the water changes temperature." The Times also refers to former former Air Force meteorologist Timothy Vasquez's Weathergraphics info at the time of the crash. Vasquez said, "I don’t see anything unusual about these storms. Planes have flown through a lot worse; I’ve seen worse squall lines in Kansas and Missouri." On the other hand, some analysts suggest the weather could have been overwhelming.

Paul-Louis Arslanian of France's accident investigation agency was "not optimistic" that the black boxes belonging to Air France Flight 447 would be recovered. Wreckage believed to be from the Paris-bound Airbus 330, which disappeared hours after taking off from Rio de Janeiro on Sunday and was carrying 228 people, was found in the Atlantic Ocean yesterday, about 410 miles from a chain of islands (map). The water in that area may be over 13,000 feet deep. Arslanian added there were no signs of plane trouble before take-off while Air France said the plane did experience heavy turbulence and its automatic message system signaled that "several pieces of aircraft equipment were at fault or had broken down." A NYC couple, Yu Lan Xu and De Qiang Chen, are grieving because their son Charles Chen, who attended Seward High and graduated from Baruch, was on the flight. Xu, who runs a dry cleaning business on the Upper East Side with her husband, thought he might have flown on Saturday, but the airline confirmed he was on the Sunday flight, "I don't want to live anymore. There is no hope. I want my son back."

Brazilian and French military jets are conducting searches of the Atlantic Ocean, in hopes of finding wreckage from the Paris-bound Air France Flight 447 that disappeared a few hours after taking off from Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night. Brazil's largest airline, TAM, reported that a crew member saw "several orange points" on the ocean's surface yesterday morning, over the same route the Air France flight was taking.

Air France announced it lost contact with an Airbus 330 carrying 228 people. The plane departed Rio de Janeiro and was headed to Paris; according to the AP, "The plane disappeared about 186 miles (300 kilometers) northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal and near Fernando de Noronha." CNN reports that Brazil's air force has "launched a search near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha in the Atlantic Ocean, 365 km (226 miles) from Brazil's coast." An Air France spokeswoman said, "Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from Air France flight 447 flying from Rio to Paris... Air France shares the emotion and worry of the families concerned." Additionally, CNN air travel expert Richard Quest weighed in, noting the plane's impeccable safety record, "It has very good range, and is extremely popular with airlines because of its versatility."

Meet Mathias Guerrand-Hermes: Polo player, heir to the French fashion house Hermès, petulant crotch-grabber. The 36-year-old socialite is in the papers today after being arraigned in Brooklyn federal court over a nasty incident aboard an Air France flight from Paris to JFK on Tuesday. Prosecutors say it all started when Guerrand-Hermes—loaded on booze and the pain medication Propofan—began pestering a female passenger in first class. When her husband told him to step off, Guerrand-Hermes, who was perched on the lady's armrest, simply moved in closer.

John and Annette Ferranti certainly did not feel they were in good hands with the Allstate Insurance Company, after Allstate refused to pay their homeowners damage claim they insist was caused by an Air France Concorde jet. The insurance company, which had wanted to appeal appeal a jury award of $1.15 million to the Mill Basin couple, finally agreed to pay the Ferrantis $995,000.

This morning, many people are thankful that all 309 passengers and crew memebers are safe after their Air France jet skidded off the runway at Pearon International Airport in Toronto. It's unclear what caused the problem, but the jet had circled the airport many times due to poor weather. Media outlets are taking the opportunity to alarm viewers/air travelers into paying more attention to the flight safety videos (Gothamist thinks the Today show clocked a good 15 minutes in the first hour on this story). Gothamist will pay more attention, as long as the folks at JFK Airport do more to make sure near-collisions (let alone collisions) don't happen anymore.

Next time you're frustrated with the slowness of airport screening, remember this: Security is in fact finding tons of weapons on passengers. Airport security officials would like passengers to pack carefully (as in "Don't pack weapons") but Gothamist thinks if you're going to go to the lengths to have a knife hidden in your belt buckle, you're probably not saying to yourself, "Hey, I should leave that at home." So we think it's just best to realize that security is trying to make flying safer for everyone from some of these kinds of weapons:

In this case, the French really don't have any sense of humor: Air France pilot Philippe Riviere's shoes set off a Kennedy Airport metal detector, and he was asked to remove them. Then Riviere made a joke about a bomb in his shoes. Of course the security workers called the cops. Riviere was arrested, his shoes turned out to be clean, his flight of 350 people to France was searched then cancelled. Bon idee, Philippe, joking about bombs in an airport. Air France apologized for Riviere's "inappropriate remark."