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What: American Airlines Boeing 757-200 en route from Miami to Boston
Where: Miami
When: Thurs September 17, 2009
Who: 168 passengers and six crew
Why: After take-off, a bomb threat note was found on board. The plane returned to Miami where it was investigated. No bomb or explosives were found.

George’s Point of View

Ladies and Gentlemen of the aviation world, please consider this and bear with me as I traipse off into the world of conjecture.

It is a mere day after someone left a note in the bathroom of the above-mentioned plane, and already that fact has been picked up by all the news services. An unsigned, unattributed note that could have been written by anyone on board, for all we know on toilet paper written in lipstick, by anyone from someone hoping to miss a dental appointment, to employees wanting the flight cancelled so they could go take their fatigued selves home to bed. And the threat made the news.

Even the whisper of bomb threats make the news.

So when I read now, months after the fact that there was an Air France bomb threat on a completely untraceable and unverifiable phone call on May 27 prior to the Air France flight 447 crash, I hear with very skeptical ears.

If you followed the coverage after the crash, you’ll be aware of how many ears were pinned to the ground, listening for every hint of possible news. The media hounds pretty much sniffed out every findable trace of even faintly related information and posted it repeatedly, echoing across the internet and print media like (if you will pardon the cliché) ripples in a pond. So this leaves me two choices of thought regarding how to consider the tidbit of a so-called Air France bomb threat.
1. It’s not true.
2. It’s true but somehow remained unbroadcast in spite of the ravenous appetite for news coverage of everything Air France/Air France flight 447 related.

1 is the end of the line for that thought process.
2…well, we can think about a little. If it is true, where has that little nugget of information been? Why hasn’t a bomb threat listed in an obscure Indian blog in June become big news regarding the Air France crash?

THis brings me to two more conclusions:
1. it was true and that fact was suppressed.
2. it is a rumor.

1. If it is true and the fact was suppressed, then that’s a very bad thing; the only ones who would suppress such a news item would be someone who would be hurt by Air France’s business being damaged, namely Air France.

If it is a rumor, then why would anyone spread such a rumor? Who would profit from the rumor? I only think of maybe two or three possibilities offhand. Any party fearing to be held responsible for the crash could float just such a rumor. OR any unscrupulous journalist, or media glutton with an appetite for attention of any kind. A paranoiac (or a writer) who sees plots or the possibilities of plots, without regard to reality. Or anyone in a competitive travel industry who might get a couple of extra travelers if a few borderline fliers turned their back on the convenience of air travel.

Now I am not saying any of this is true; I am just saying that I am skeptical about the rumors of a threat to a different flight BEFORE the Air France Flight 447 crash coming out as a new development in news months after the crash.

I’m just saying.