The Interocitor

Air France details

The LA Times, in a copyrighted article today, lays out several details about the Air France flight suspension:

• Six passengers on yesterday's AF flight 68 pinged the terrorist database -- one of these was a licensed pilot.
• The flight was cancelled after check-in [or maybe boarding], and several passengers may have been detained.
• All passengers were questioned.
• The previous day's flight 68 was met at LAX by security in a remote hanger, and all passengers were subjected to intense scrutiny.
• The only likely US target for such a flight would be Los Angeles [given the flightpath over western Canada and Montana/Idaho/Nevada, this makes a lot of sense (although London might be a possibility) --km].
• Al Qaeda has a history of targeting LAX, and often returns to previous targets and plans.
• At least one comm intercept mentioned AF flight 68 specifically.
• Other intecepts mentioned a coordinated attack involving multiple planes.
• Mexican flights into the US are receiving hightened security.
• The French bent over backwards to assist, and made that assistance known in the loudest possible terms ("We are so not Weasels!")

Even if authorities make arrests in the Air France investigation, one FBI official cautioned against overconfidence.
"This threat was pretty specific," the official said. "It's not the only threat."

I live less than 2 miles from LAX, so I hope they get every last one of these jerks.

UPDATE: Welcome to Instapundit readers. Feel free to read the whole blog.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The New York Times reports:

A Pentagon official said Wednesday that the Bush administration was particularly concerned about international flights originating in France and Mexico.

Since Sunday, officials at the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, and the United States Northern Command have increased the number of jet-fighter patrols over American cities and the number of aircraft on alert, officials said. Patrols have been increased over Washington and New York City.

And you can see frequent contrails over Los Angeles, too.

EXPECTED UPDATE: The French let them go.

The seven questioned men, who all had tickets for Air France Flight 68 to Los Angeles, were on a watch list provided by U.S. authorities, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. But all were released after questioning Wednesday night, the spokesman said.

Posted by Kevin Murphy at December 25, 2003 10:52 AM | TrackBack