Search continues for missing Air France flight
(CNN) — Brazilian, French and Senegalese rescue teams combed vast sections of the Atlantic after an Air France jet disappeared in a possible crash.
Anne and Michael Harris, who lived in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, were two Americans aboard the flight.
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A report of “shiny spots” in the sea along the route of Flight 447 by a crew from the Brazilian airline TAM prompted a search in the territorial waters off Senegal, but without result.
The developments came as more details about the victims of Flight 447 began to emerge Tuesday.
The Airbus A330 encountered heavy turbulence early Monday, some three hours after the jet carrying 228 people left Rio de Janeiro for Paris on an 11-hour flight, according to Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon.
At that point, the plane’s automatic system initiated a four-minute exchange of messages to the company’s maintenance computers, indicating that “several pieces of aircraft equipment were at fault or had broken down,” he told reporters.
During that time, there was no contact with the crew, Gourgeon said.
“It was probable that it was a little bit after those messages that the impact of the plane took place in the Atlantic,” he added.
The Airbus A330 was off radar and probably closer to Brazil than to Africa at the time, he said.
Two squadrons from Brazil’s air force launched a search near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha in the Atlantic Ocean, about 365 kilometers (225 miles) from Brazil’s coast, an air force spokesman told CNN. And French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France sent ships and planes to the area about 400 kilometers (250 miles) from Brazil. 
See map of suspected crash zone »
“Our Spanish friends are helping us, Brazilians are helping us a lot as well,” he said.
Among the passengers were 126 men, 82 women, seven children and a baby, in addition to the 12 crew members, Air France said. Of the crew, 11 were French and one was Brazilian. 
Watch latest report on missing aircraft »
An official list of victims by name was not available late Monday, but the only two Americans on board — Michael Harris, 60, and his wife, Anne, 54 — were identified by the couple’s family and his employer.
“Anne and Mike were indeed a beautiful couple inside and out, and I miss them terribly already,” said Anne Harris’ sister, Mary Miley.
Don’t Miss
Michael Harris was a geologist in Rio de Janeiro for Devon Energy, the largest U.S.-based independent natural gas and oil producer, according to a company spokesman.
The couple had lived in the city since July 2008 and were traveling to Paris for a training seminar for Michael and for a vacation, Miley told CNN.
The airliner identified the nationalities of the other victims as: Argentinean (1); Austrian (1); Belgian (1); Brazilian (58); British (5); Canadian (1); Chinese (9); Croatian (1); Danish (1); Dutch (1); Estonian (1); Filipino (1); French (61); Gambian (1); German (26); Hungarian (4); Icelandic (1); Irish (3); Italian (9); Lebanese (5); Moroccan (2); Norwegian (3); Polish (2); Romanian (1); Russian (1); Slovakian (3); Spanish (2); Swedish (1); Swiss (6); Turkish (1).
The jet was 4 years old and had last undergone routine maintenance April 16. Watch report on what could have caused aircraft to go down »
Its crew was comprised of three pilots, including a 58-year-old captain who had logged 11,000 hours in flight, and nine cabin crew members, Air France said in a statement. Some 1,700 of the captain’s hours were on two Airbus models. Of the two co-pilots — ages 37 and 32 — one had 3,000 hours of flying experience and the other 6,600 hours. The aircraft had flown 18,870 hours, the statement said.
Of the passengers, 149 had planned to connect to flights going elsewhere in Europe or as far away as China, Gourgeon said.
“This is a catastrophe the likes of which Air France has never seen before,” Sarkozy told reporters at Charles de Gaulle International Airport, where he had met with relatives of the missing aboard the flight.
“I said the truth to them: The prospects of finding survivors are very low,” he said. Watch comments from Sarkozy »
France asked the U.S. military to assist in the search with U.S. detection satellites, French Transport Minister Jean-Louis Borloo told CNN affiliate France 2. Pentagon officials did not immediately confirm the request.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told reporters in San Salvador, El Salvador, that he had spoken with Sarkozy, but neither leader knew what to say.
“All we could do was thank each other,” Lula said. “He thanked me for the speed with which the Brazilian air force took charge.”
He added, “In times like these, there is little to do but to deeply lament, to wish the families a lot of strength, because there are no words.”
The jet, which was flying at 35,000 feet and at 521 mph, also sent a warning that it had lost pressure, the Brazilian air force said.
The jet took off from Rio de Janeiro’s Galeao International Airport at 11:30 p.m. Sunday. Its last known contact occurred at 02:33 a.m. Monday, the Brazilian air force spokesman said. It was not clear what that final contact was.
It was expected to check in with air traffic controllers at 03:20 a.m. but did not do so. Brazilian authorities asked the air force to launch a search mission just over three hours later.
Cheney Disavows 9/11-Iraq Link
On Monday, former Veep Dick Cheney admitted at long last that there was no link between the Sept. 11 attacks and Iraq, contrary to what the Bush administration had led the nation to believe in 2003 in order to justify waging a war on a country rich in history, culture … and oil. Tens of thousands of Iraqi and American casualties later, we thank you, Dick.
Bloomberg:
By James Rowley and Jonathan D. Salant
June 1 (Bloomberg) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney disavowed intelligence he once cited to suggest that then-Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein collaborated with al-Qaeda to stage the Sept. 11 attacks.
Cheney said today that information by the Central Intelligence Agency of collaboration between Iraq and al-Qaeda on Sept. 11 “turned out not to be true.” Still, Cheney said a longstanding relationship existed between Hussein and terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, that justified the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
“I thought it was strong at the time and I still feel so today,” Cheney said at a National Press Club lunch in Washington. “There was a relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq that stretched back 10 years. That’s not something I made up.” Citing 2002 Senate testimony by George Tenet, then the CIA director, he said, “We know for a fact that Saddam Hussein was a state sponsor of terrorism.”
On whether Hussein helped al-Qaeda carry out the 2001 terrorist attacks, Cheney said, “I do not believe, and I have never seen any evidence, that he was involved in 9/11.”
Cheney continued his attacks on President Barack Obama’s pledge to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where suspected terrorists are being held. Obama has called the indefinite detention of suspects at Guantanamo a “mistake” and said he will close the camp — a vow that has been complicated by the refusal of lawmakers, including Democrats, to provide funding.
Difficult to Close
“I think it’s going to be very difficult to close Guantanamo,” Cheney said. “It’s a good, well-run facility. If you’re going to be engaged in a world conflict such as we are in terms of global war on terrorism, if you don’t have a place where you can hold these people, your only other option is to kill them. We don’t operate that way.”
Several months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Cheney said it was “pretty well” confirmed that Mohamed Atta, one of the leaders of the attack, had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague in April 2000, according to a Washington Post account. Cheney later said the meeting’s existence couldn’t be proven, the Post said.
The presidential commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks concluded in 2004 that meetings or contacts between al- Qaeda and Iraqi officials didn’t result in collaboration between the terrorist group and Hussein’s regime.
Defending Policies
Cheney’s midday speech marked his latest salvo in a personal campaign to defend the Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies while suggesting that Obama’s actions have made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.
In his press club appearance, Cheney said that foreign governments that have criticized Guantanamo haven’t been willing to take in suspects detained there. And if detainees are admitted to the U.S., they would gain certain rights and protections they do not have in the prison in Cuba.
“If you bring them here and a judge rules you can’t hold them any longer, you have to release them in the United States,” Cheney said.
Cheney, 68, has said lives were saved by Bush administration actions, including authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques considered to be torture, such as waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.
Obama has banned waterboarding, saying such actions betray the country’s “ideals” and aren’t necessary to “wage an aggressive battle against organizations like al-Qaeda.
‘Worried’ About GM
Cheney also said today he was “worried” about General Motors Corp.’s bankruptcy protection that was forced upon the automaker by the Obama administration. The bankruptcy plan calls for taxpayers to own more than 60 percent of General Motors. “Once you get into the business of a government running a major corporation like General Motors,” political pressures “come to bear and not economic interests,’” Cheney said.
In an interview before his speech, Cheney said the U.S. will face “enormous pressure” to manage GM in a way that doesn’t cost jobs. Cheney, asked about gay rights at the luncheon, said decisions on whether to legalize same-sex marriages should be made by states, not the federal government.
Cheney, whose daughter, Mary, is gay, indicated that he supports same-sex marriages. “Freedom means freedom for everyone,” he said. “I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish.”
www.bloomberg.com
Policy differences or high crimes?
Swanson: Obama allowing Cheney to play offense; constitution demands prosecution
David Swanson: “Torture was always illegal”
Who’s afraid of the CIA?
McGovern: Liz Cheney’s accusation of Wilkerson’s “fantasy stories” would be wonderful if it were true
Paul Jay speaks to Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst under seven US presidents. On May 17, Liz Cheney, Dick Cheney’s daughter, accused Lawrence Wilkerson, the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, of creating a “cottage industry” making up “fantasy stories” about her father on the George Stephanopoulos Show. After interviewing Wilkerson, McGovern says “it would be wonderful if it were [a] fantasy. [But] It’s all too real.”
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