‘Terror Suspects Were On AF447′
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By HARRY HAYDON
TWO passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on board the doomed Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it emerged today.
French intelligence agents recognised the names while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31st.
Flight AF447 crashed in mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm.
Air France also received a bomb threat in Brazil four days before the doomed flight crashed.
Soon after news of the fatal crash broke, agents working for the DGSE (Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieur), 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 a French newspaper that the link was “highly significant”.
Terrorism has not been ruled out as the cause of the crash however investigators believe computer malfunctions downed the jet.
Agents are now trying to establish dates of birth for the two dead passengers, and family connections.
There is a possibility that 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, similarly to the ones on the United States on September 11th 2001.
French investigators today confirmed that that terrorism has not been ruled out, with an Air France spokesman adding that “all the indications” are that the Airbus suffered some kind of catastrophic equipment failure.
A total of 41 bodies have so far been recovered from the zone 700 miles off Brazil’s northeast coast where the plane came down.
Brazilian and French officials are using DNA samples from relatives and dental records to identify the remains.
On Monday, a Brazilian crew recovered the tail fin from the plane – considered significant because it could narrow the area underwater where the black boxes are.
The cause of the disaster is not known, but initial suspicions are focusing on the plane’s airspeed sensors which were giving faulty readings, according to automatic data alerts sent by the plane in its final minutes in the air.
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