LOS ANGELES (AP) - Authorities searched an Air France airliner at Los Angeles International Airport early Saturday for explosives that disappeared during a French police training exercise at an airport outside Paris, officials said.
No explosives were found on Flight 70, which arrived late Friday after a flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Three other airliners that had left Charles de Gaulle were searched at New York City's John F. Kennedy International, said Transportation Security Administration spokesman Norm Brewer.
AP Sacramento Bee link (http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/11654608p-12543541c.html)
CPRich
Dec 5, 04, 10:10 am
You forgot the absolutely best part of the story:
"French military police had been using the explosive material to train dogs to detect bombs, but they lost track of a piece of luggage containing an unspecified type and amount of explosive, authorities said."
<insert "french military" jokes here>
HeHateY
Dec 5, 04, 1:21 pm
AF 70 flies CDG-LAX-PPT. The thru-passengers are forced by Vaterland-sicherheit to deplane and go through U.S. immigration and customs (including the mug-shot and finger-printing?) at LAX, so that day's trip from one part of France to another must have been a long one.
:td:
CVG's DL Hostage
Dec 5, 04, 10:10 pm
AF 70 flies CDG-LAX-PPT. The thru-passengers are forced by Vaterland-sicherheit to deplane and go through U.S. immigration and customs (including the mug-shot and finger-printing?) at LAX, so that day's trip from one part of France to another must have been a long one.
:td:
"Fatherland Security"? "One part of France to another"?
How naive and idiotic. Sorry, AF flight to LAX ex CDG with possible explosives? We're searching it, from top to bottom. Any serious country would. If the French "security services" had done their damn jobs, it would have been unnecessary. Instead, they unleashed plastic explosives. It's hardly Third Reich to check for this stuff. You want to get on a plane that the lazy French "forgot" to check?
And the idea that flying from Paris to the South Pacific is entirely within France is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong -- I love visiting France. But its colonial pretensions are just that -- a delusion that it actually still matters. And it doesn't. Hasn't at all since, oh, Waterloo.
GUWonder
Dec 5, 04, 10:25 pm
"Fatherland Security"? "One part of France to another"?
How naive and idiotic. Sorry, AF flight to LAX ex CDG with possible explosives? We're searching it, from top to bottom. Any serious country would. If the French "security services" had done their damn jobs, it would have been unnecessary. Instead, they unleashed plastic explosives. It's hardly Third Reich to check for this stuff. You want to get on a plane that the lazy French "forgot" to check?
And the idea that flying from Paris to the South Pacific is entirely within France is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong -- I love visiting France. But its colonial pretensions are just that -- a delusion that it actually still matters. And it doesn't. Hasn't at all since, oh, Waterloo.
PPT is part of France. It's located in a French DOM-TOM. So from France to France (via LAX). ;)
French End Hiding of Explosives in Luggage
By JAMEY KEATEN, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - French police on Sunday ended their practice of hiding plastic explosives in air passengers' luggage to train bomb-sniffing dogs after one such bag got lost, possibly ending up on a flight out of Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport.
Some passenger who is caught with the explosives in his/her belonging -- which he/she does not know about -- will result in the rubber glove (proctology-like) experience courtesy of the Department of Fatherland Security or one of it's international siblings.
Doppy
Dec 5, 04, 11:53 pm
How naive and idiotic. Sorry, AF flight to LAX ex CDG with possible explosives? We're searching it, from top to bottom.
I may be naive and idiotic, but could you explain how mug shots and fingerprinting assisted in the search for th explosives? Perhaps someone hid them between the ridges on their fingers?
SonOfACockroach
Dec 6, 04, 12:18 am
I may be naive and idiotic, but could you explain how mug shots and fingerprinting assisted in the search for th explosives? Perhaps someone hid them between the ridges on their fingers?
Doppy! Stop giving the "bad people" ideas! :o :o :o
HeHateY
Dec 6, 04, 1:32 am
"Fatherland Security"? "One part of France to another"?
How naive and idiotic. Sorry, AF flight to LAX ex CDG with possible explosives? We're searching it, from top to bottom. Any serious country would. If the French "security services" had done their damn jobs, it would have been unnecessary. Instead, they unleashed plastic explosives. It's hardly Third Reich to check for this stuff. You want to get on a plane that the lazy French "forgot" to check?
And the idea that flying from Paris to the South Pacific is entirely within France is ridiculous. Don't get me wrong -- I love visiting France. But its colonial pretensions are just that -- a delusion that it actually still matters. And it doesn't. Hasn't at all since, oh, Waterloo.
Actually, as mentioned elsewhere, the Tahitian Islands are a TOM-DOM which means that Tahiti is as much a part of France as the U.S. Virgin Islands or Guam are a part of the USA.
Their currency was pegged to the Franc, it is now to the euro, and I suspect Tahiti will adopt the euro as its currency in a few years.
As for the mug-shot and finger-printing: Remember that passengers on flights that transited the USA were not required to pass through U.S. Immigration and Customs until after 11 September, 2001.
Thus the AF PPT-LAX-CDG, the NZ AKL-LAX-LHR and the AC SYD-HNL-YVR flights only required the thru-passengers to leave the aircraft for refueling, and did not require the aircraft to be completely unloaded and everyone having to present their passports as if they were entering the USA, which they are not. Now they do!
The irony of AF 70/71 (and also the thrice-weekly Air Tahiti Nui flights which operate PPT-LAX-CDG and v.v.) is that they operate from a place "in France" to a place "in France" via LAX
When a USA citizen flies from LAX to SVO via AMS on KL, do they clear Dutch/Schengen immigration? No. When UA still flew a through aircraft from SFO to AMS with a stop in LHR, were the AMS bound passengers required to present themselves to Her Majesty's Customs? No.
Of course this aircraft ought to be searched!
But why are the passengers on this flight forced to get off everytime, fake bomb or no fake bomb, they transit LAX, get bussed from DL/AF's T5 to the Bradley Terminal and stand in a line to present themselves and their passports, which now includeds the smile and inking? All of this done in the middle of the night after an 11 hour flight from CDG; and if you aren't a French or US national, then you require a visa in advance for the privilege of experiencing this.
How have we become so arrogant/paranoid to expect this from others, when it is not done to us, such as on the above mentioned KL connection or UA flights, or the JFK-YVR-HKG flights on CX?
It sure is nice that the ROW (save for Brazil) hasn't started treating us the same way. I wish they would.
It is this arrogance that has cost MIA their IB hub (i.e. revenue and jobs).
Oh, and "Vaterland-sicherheit"? When did you ever refer to the USA as "The Homeland" before Chimpy McBush came up with this (emotionally-loaded) term? How come we don't refer to the federal tax agency as "Homeland Revenue Service"? How come my airport doesn't have a "Homeland Terminal" adjacent to the International Terminal?
Because "Internal" or "Domestic" are far more appropriate than a word that reminds me both of Motherland or Fatherland.
GUWonder
Dec 6, 04, 8:42 am
If some passenger in the US discovers that he was an unwitting smuggler of explosives, what is the penalty?
After all, such people get prosecuted generally.
... and so much for "border" security when customs (security forces) cannot even do their job. :(
Doppy
Dec 6, 04, 9:17 am
When a USA citizen flies from LAX to SVO via AMS on KL, do they clear Dutch/Schengen immigration? No. When UA still flew a through aircraft from SFO to AMS with a stop in LHR, were the AMS bound passengers required to present themselves to Her Majesty's Customs? No.
Clearly they have a pre-burning of the Reichstag mentality.
Droneklax
Dec 6, 04, 8:29 pm
Actually, as mentioned elsewhere, the Tahitian Islands are a TOM-DOM which means that Tahiti is as much a part of France as the U.S. Virgin Islands or Guam are a part of the USA.
Their currency was pegged to the Franc, it is now to the euro, and I suspect Tahiti will adopt the euro as its currency in a few years.
As for the mug-shot and finger-printing: Remember that passengers on flights that transited the USA were not required to pass through U.S. Immigration and Customs until after 11 September, 2001.
Thus the AF PPT-LAX-CDG, the NZ AKL-LAX-LHR and the AC SYD-HNL-YVR flights only required the thru-passengers to leave the aircraft for refueling, and did not require the aircraft to be completely unloaded and everyone having to present their passports as if they were entering the USA, which they are not. Now they do!
The irony of AF 70/71 (and also the thrice-weekly Air Tahiti Nui flights which operate PPT-LAX-CDG and v.v.) is that they operate from a place "in France" to a place "in France" via LAX
When a USA citizen flies from LAX to SVO via AMS on KL, do they clear Dutch/Schengen immigration? No. When UA still flew a through aircraft from SFO to AMS with a stop in LHR, were the AMS bound passengers required to present themselves to Her Majesty's Customs? No.
Of course this aircraft ought to be searched!
But why are the passengers on this flight forced to get off everytime, fake bomb or no fake bomb, they transit LAX, get bussed from DL/AF's T5 to the Bradley Terminal and stand in a line to present themselves and their passports, which now includeds the smile and inking? All of this done in the middle of the night after an 11 hour flight from CDG; and if you aren't a French or US national, then you require a visa in advance for the privilege of experiencing this.
How have we become so arrogant/paranoid to expect this from others, when it is not done to us, such as on the above mentioned KL connection or UA flights, or the JFK-YVR-HKG flights on CX?
It sure is nice that the ROW (save for Brazil) hasn't started treating us the same way. I wish they would.
It is this arrogance that has cost MIA their IB hub (i.e. revenue and jobs).
Oh, and "Vaterland-sicherheit"? When did you ever refer to the USA as "The Homeland" before Chimpy McBush came up with this (emotionally-loaded) term? How come we don't refer to the federal tax agency as "Homeland Revenue Service"? How come my airport doesn't have a "Homeland Terminal" adjacent to the International Terminal?
Because "Internal" or "Domestic" are far more appropriate than a word that reminds me both of Motherland or Fatherland.