Did America Sabotage Airbus Flight 961?

By: Blackcat - 29th April 2005 at 21:37

Did America Sabotage Airbus Flight 961?

When part of the rudder on Air Transat Flight 961 apparently 'fell off' the aircraft 30 minutes north of Cuba, the captain requested an emergency landing at the nearest suitable airport, which was Fort Lauderdale International. Then inexplicably and in violation of international aviation treaties and law, America refused, forcing the crippled Canadian jet to return to Cuba.

It is more than a little convenient for Boeing that the crash of American Airlines 587 in New York, and the near-crashes of Transat 236 and 961 in Cuba and the Azores, all permitted the media to hysterically point the finger at advanced carbon fiber composites used by Airbus but not by Boeing. If foul play was involved in these incidents, the subliminal suggestion appears obvious: All Americans should fly in thirsty old-fashioned riveted American Boeings, the airborne equivalents of US Army Abrams battle tanks, and stay far far away from 'flimsy European Airbus rubbish'. Concorde 4590 was sabotaged in 2000, almost killing the President of France.

Before we wade into the distinct possibility of direct American sabotage of European Airbus aircraft in general, first get one essential fact straight in your head, and get it straight right now: Pilots are not politicians, and they do not play political games in emergency situations at 35,000 feet. The actions of aircrew in emergency situations like losing part of the rudder or elevator, are well-rehearsed and virtually automatic, including terse messages to the passengers during the emrgency, attempting to explain the inexplicable.

Such was the case as Canadian Air Transat Flight 961 headed north from Cuba to Canada on March 6, when the aircraft suddenly went into a steep dive without warning. Though the Captain managed to recover, he swiftly discovered that the rudder, part of the vertical stabilizer responsible for turning the aircraft left and right, was not responding to control inputs. Clearly the rudder or vertical stabilizer had suffered significant damage, meaning that the aircraft needed to land as straight ahead as possible, thus avoiding any lateral strain on this essential vertical structure.

The airport best suiting this emergency requirement was Fort Lauderdale International in Florida, but to his astonishment, the American authorities refused him permission for an emergency landing, in direct violation of international law. Continuing another 2,000 nautical miles north to Canada without knowing the level of the damage was impossible, so after conferring briefly with Air Transat headquarters, the captain made the following verbatim announcement on the aircraft public address system, heard by everone on board.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a minor problem with the aircraft but the American authorities have denied us landing permission in Florida. We are therefore returning to Cuba and should be landing in about forty minutes." Please note that the use of the word "minor" is normal on the public address system, designed to disguise the severity of the emergency and minimize panic amongst the passengers.

Then the captain very slowly and very carefully reduced his forward airspeed, before commencing a 180 degree turn back towards Cuba, using only his elevators and ailerons. But regarless of how gentle he was, the unnecessary turn he was forced to make as a direct result of the American refusal, placed enormous strain on that piece of the aircraft he already knew to be seriously damaged - the rudder.

Any slight miscalculation during that forced turn, could have exceeded the shear stress limits on the damaged vertical stabilizer, causing complete separation and a chilling death plunge into the Florida swamps for 270 passengers and crew.

Depending on exactly where the Airbus came down, you can confidently add a few dozen or hundred American dead on the ground in Florida, either crushed by falling debris or turned into screaming human roman candles by blazing jet fuel in their own back yards.

This 'terrible tragedy' would then have generated enormousy adverse publicity for Airbus in general, and in particular for the maiden flight of the giant double-decker Airbus A380 'Super Jumbo', scheduled for mid April 2005. But it would have been very good news for Boeing, wouldn't it?

Were it not for the fact that the passengers and crew survived, and are capable of making sworn statements about the American emergency landing refusal, broadcast to them by the captain over the public address system, there would be no proof at all, meaning that someone somewhere thought this sabotage through very carefully. Let me try to explain why.

If shear stress loads werer exceeded and the Florida swamps had suddenly been splattered with thousands of primarily Canadian body parts, the critical Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) would have gone crashing into the swamp with those body parts - right in the middle of Florida Governor Jeb Bush's state jurisdiction. Call me cynical, but the CVR would have been officially lost forever, while Boeing executives rushed off a frantic international sales tour to try and save their already doomed corporation.

To sidetrack briefly here, Boeing does not have much time left. In recent times, low sales and even lower future sales prospects, have caused Boeing to shut down its 717 aircraft production line, while a $23 billion air-refueling tanker 'smoke and mirrors' contract with the Pentagon, designed to fraudulently cook the books and mislead investors on Wall Street, has now been cancelled. And remember, when 'flagship' Boeing finally goes down, the rest of the American aerospace industry will follow shortly afterwards.

Getting back to Flight 961, we must consider what would have happened to the evidence if the captain either survived long enough to reach Canadian airspace, or alteratively survived the deadly 180 degree turn and managed to return to Cuba.

The Cockpit Voice Recorder is designed solely to allow investigators to listen in to the last few moments of any flight that crashes. To this end, the CVR (whether analog or digital) runs in a closed 30-minute loop, meaning that anything said or transmitted in the cockpit 31 minutes or more earlier, has already been overwritten with more recent data.

The American authorities already knew that the minimum time required for Airbus 961 to reach an international airport outside the US was 40 minutes (to Cuba), plus a further 7 - 10 minutes to taxi in from the runway and shut down the engines. Thus the American refusal was already overwritten on the 30-minute loop, meaning it would be the Canadian Captain's word against the combined might of the American Federal Aviation Administration.

Well, that was the game plan, but the American authorities had not reckoned on the obviously shocked Canadian Captain announcing the American emergency refusal to more than 250 human witnesses on the aircraft public address system. Now then, are you going to believe 250 honest Canadian passengers (even if they were going to 'Commie' Cuba...), or are you going to believe the folk at the FAA, who still claim that a bunch of failed Muslim Cessna pilots were suddenly converted by Allah into Top Guns, thereby enabling them to aaccurately throw huge clumsy Boeing airliners around the sky like lightweight FA-18 Hornet fighters.

There is no doubt that crashing (or nearly-crashing) commercial airliners are of enormous importance to politicians and other certifiable maniacs in New York. Ever since the Jewish State sent Pan Am 103 plunging into Lockerbie village during 1988 to 'set up' the Libyans for destructive economic sanctions, the wannabee New World Order crowd has recognised the emotional importance of large numbers of blazing humans fluttering to earth in full view of the gullible public. After the breathtaking 'accidental' aviation incident has taken place, the media finger of premeditated guilt is subtly pointed at the nation (or planemaker) designated for punishment or destruction.

Pan Am bomb was electronically triggered over Dean Cross in the Lake District
Story on Pan Am 103 is linked at bottom of this page

While blaming airliners artistically bombed-up by Mossad on the Arabs became quite fashionable in New York, an even bigger threat loomed on the horizon. If the high-tech European Aerospace industry could not be stopped, in less than fifty years it would completely wipe Boeing and all the other major American planemakers off the map. The visible icon of this European aerospace excellence was the sleek Concorde, flashing east and west across the Atlantic Ocean at Mach 2, while passengers sipped vintage champagne in absolute luxury.

This affront to American aviation could not be allowed to continue, so during 1995-1996 Boeing and NASA plotted how to claw one of these sexy Mach 2 machines out of the air very publicly, thereby proving that European aircraft were 'unsafe'.

This covert American operation was successfully concluded when Concorde 4590 smashed into Gonesse at exactly 14 h 44 min 31.6 s on July 25, 2000, filmed all the way by an American spook parked in a truck with a video camera. This camera enabled the saboteurs to frighten the travelling public 'properly'. As with Pan Am 103, there is no point in deliberately crashing a passenger plane if you cannot then show pictures of gory corpses, and hint at the possibility of stinking charred flesh.

As is pointed out in the long report "Concorde Sabotage" linked at the bottom of this page, this sophisticated and very expensive covert operration was a proxy job, because its primary aim was to undermine general passenger confidence in mass-producer European Airbus Industries - the main threat to Boeing and other American planemakers.

It is known that a number of 'follow up' operations were planned, but all of these apart from one appear to have been shelved or altered after 911. However, because the intent and result of the Concorde sabotage is already known, it is very reasonable to speculate that any inexplicable and thus suspicious Airbus crashes or near-crashes afterJuly 25, 2000, are part of the ongoing lethal 'public relations war' being waged by America against Europe, and against Airbus in particular.

American Airlines Flight 587, New York November 2001, 265 dead.
Story on American 587 is linked at the bottom of this page

Probably the best-known Airbus crash is American Airlines Flight 587, which simply fell out of the sky overhead Jamaica Bay, just after departing JFK Airport in New York. None of the media stories made sense, and neither did any of the bits of wreckage. THe media was peddling garbage, as I noted at the time:

"What cannot be explained away by the NTSB or FAA is how or why the stabilizer parted company with the aircraft at precisely the point where it joins the fuselage proper. Look at the enlarged photograph very carefully. There are absolutely no dents, scratches, on the leading edge or on the panels. This proves the vertical stabilizer was not struck by any other object, in turn proving it was the first component to detach from the aircraft.

"Trickier still for the NTSB, FAA and Airbus Industries, will be explaining to the general public why, with prima facie evidence proving catastrophic separation along a critical attachment line, the FAA and Airbus Industries failed to immediately ground all Airbus A300-600 models worldwide. This in order to conduct black light inspections of the stabilizer spars, panels, attachment pins, bolts and other critical components.

"Not only is grounding of this nature a normal operating procedure, it is also a legal requirement. Most readers will remember that all Concorde aircraft were grounded for more than a year after the crash of Air France 4590 at Paris. Concorde's grounding was based mostly on speculation, and partly on trivial circumstantial evidence, flimsier by far than the prima facie evidence already existing in the case of American Airlines Flight 587.

"In order not to ground all Airbus A300-600 series, the NTSB, FAA and Airbus Industries would have to be convinced that the reason for the crash of Flight 587 was strictly unique, a one-off that could not occur under similar flight conditions to any other Airbus A300-600 worldwide. The only reason unique enough to fit this requirement is an act of terrorism."

American terrorism, perhaps? Look at the timing, and more importantly look very closely at events during the preceding three months. Do you remember those giant Boeing airliners slicing through the towers of the World Trade Center? Yes, of course you do, as does the rest of the world courtesy of American television. The problem for America is that the anchor men kept saying "Boeing" over and over again.

It was the worst possible publicity Boeing could have. Time after time on a hundred TV channels, millions watched on in horror as BOEINGS, yes BOEINGS ripped through the towers, killing hundreds of women and children. If you want your wife and children to die, just send them for a flight on a BOEING!

Even now in Australia, four years after the event, we regularly see that famous video clip of Flight 175 (a Boeing 767) tearing through the South Tower, spraying Jet A1 fuel as it rips through the glass framework. It chills the blood, and several people have told me they will never fly in a Boeing again. The entire 911 incident was very bad news for Boeing Corporation, which decided to fight back with a bit of counter-propaganda and fear.

And so it was that less than three months later, American Airlines 587, an Airbus 300-600, entered a ballistic trajectory and impacted (almost impossibly) on a narow isthmus of land called Rockaway Beach. Blazing Jet A1, gory body parts, and bit of mangled fuselage were everywhere on very public display.

"The tragic accident, which took the lives of at least five Rockaway residents as well as all of the 265 people on the aircraft, was a flashback for many to September 11, when more than 65 Rockaway residents lost their lives.

"The trauma of that day is still so fresh in my memory that it seems like only yesterday," says one resident who saw the plane, its wings in flames and its tail missing pass over The Sunset Diner, where he was eating breakfast. "All I could think of was "Oh, God, not again."

As we have grown to expect, the American media made a very big fuss about this unfortunate and apparent 'accident', pointing out repeatedly that Airbuses can crash too, in an equally spectacular and highly-targeted fashion befitting the WTC Boeings. Not only that, but for the first time ever, tame journalists started to encourage public suspicion of the enormously strong carbon fiber composites used in all advanced Airbus construction.

Just twenty-five days before the attack on New York, there was another serious Airbus incident in the Azores, an obscure group of islands about 1,000 miles west of Portugal. On Friday August 17, 2001, Air Transat Flight 236 suffered an extremely unusual in-flight emergency, that under more circumstances would have made front page new in New York.

Partly because the Azores are so remote, and partly because of delays caused by the complicated chain of reporting through Air Transat headquarters and the authorities in Canada, this exceptional event was completely smothered by the massive onslought of publicity surrounding the complete destruction of the World Trade Center.

There are hundreds of accounts on the Internet detailing the bravery and sheer skill of Canadian Captain Robert Piché, so I will merely recount the outline details of this so-called 'incident', which involved an Airbus A330 owned and operated by the same small Canadian airline that was refused landing permission at Fort Lauderdale International on March 6, 2005.

In brief, Captain Piché and his First Officer noticed a fuel loss from the starboard (right) wing, which normally feeds number two engine on the same side. Because it was pitch black outside and because there had been no trouble at take-off with both engines running at 100% power, neither pilot had reason to suspect that a truly massive fuel leak had suddenly started in the right-hand number two engine. Nor was there any such indication on the flight deck warning panels. After a short period, number two engine spooled down due to fuel starvation, leaving Captain Piché and 303 other souls with a single engine burning, at night, way out over the Atlanic.

For technical reasons I will not bother with here because they are not directly related to flight 961 over Fort Lauderdale International, certain Canadian officials are convinced the aircraft was sabotaged while in its Canadian hangars, using a remote delay device to start the massive fuel leak. This alone would not normally stop both engines, but pilot's notes for the aircraft in question would trick the pilots themselves into dumping the fuel needed for the left-hand number one engine.

On the A330, a computer moves fuel backwards and forwards between the left and right wing to maintain trim - or 'balance' if you prefer. This is achieved by pumps feeding through the "crossfeed valve", which must first be opened by the pilot. Initially suspecting only a small leak in the wing tank (why suspect anything else?), the crew opened the crossfeed valve, fuel started to transfer from the left wing to the right, though the flight deck gauges did not reflect the true rate of transfer. In other words, fuel was transferring across three times faster than shown by the gauges, and vanishing into the night sky via the gaping hole in right-hand number two engine.

Then everything suddenly went very quiet. Starved of fuel, number one engine on the left wing spooled down as well, leaving the giant Airbus with lift provided only by the wings. In a split second, Flight 236 had been converted into the biggest glider on earth. It was indeed fortunate for the passengers on board that Captain Robert Piché had earlier honed his flying skills overcoming wind, fog and rain flying bush planes on the short airstrips of Quebec's rugged Anticosti Island.

From a starting point 39,000 feet up over the Atlantic, Captain Piché briefed the cabin crew for a ditching (water landing), while at the same time planning to glide the giant plane 63 nautical miles to the Azores, and land on the runway at the Terceira military base. Thirty three minutes after sending his first emergency call, Captain Piché slammed the giant Airbus hard onto the runway at Terceira, deliberately bursting the tyres in order to slow down and stop.

Without the extraordinary Captain Robert Piché on board, the Air Transat Airbus A330 would certainly have ditched and probably vanished without trace, because weather conditions were very bad that night. In those circumstances, Airbus Industries would have lost one of its newest aircraft, thereby setting up a shockwave of anxiety among potential passengers.

It is indeed strange how history seems to have an uncanny ability of bringing the bad guys to justice. The reality is that Captain Robert Piché was on board that terrible night, and the reputation of Airbus Industries remained intact. Just twenty-five days later it would be a pair of American Boeing 767s that would terrify the travelling public instead, when they vanished inside the twin towers of the World Trade Center at 575 miles per hour.

The author has more than 8,000 total flying hours, and is a retired member of the Society of Aircraft Engineers and Technologists
u guys can read abt it in here