What Happened to Air France Flight 447?

UPDATE (06-10-09): Terror Names Linked To Doomed Flight AF 447  Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged.

Since, at this point, we still do not know specifically what happened to the Air France passenger jet that simply disappeared over the Atlantic today, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, I will venture a few thoughts about what could have happened. 

First, having flown as a commercial airline passenger over a million-and-a-half miles in the last 20 years (probably closer to 2 million miles, when you add it all up), I can vouch for the fact that turbulence and lightning, however it bad either might get — and (very rarely, thank the Lord) I have experienced some truly hair-raising, white-knuckle incidents of both while flying — are not likely to, in themselves, sufficiently damage a modern passenger jet enough to make it crash. That scenario is possible, of course, but things I have read today seem to support my opinion that modern aircraft, such as the doomed Air France Airbus, are sufficiently resilient to survive passing through severe weather, all things being equal.

This is why I question the likelihood of a lightning strike or turbulence being the cause of bringing down that 4-year old Airbus — equipped, as it was, with the very latest in avionics and bad-weather avoidance technology. While that's certainly a possible scenario — I do not deny it — at this point it seems less likely.

Second, all the reports I have read thus far about this disaster, especially those  in the French-language press, lead me to assume that this accident (or whatever it was) must have occurred at cruising altitude which, for this plane on this route, would have been about 35,000 feet (+/-).  Keep in mind that Air France Flight 447 was already four hours into its transit from Rio to Paris.

News reports thus far have emphasized that the crew "did not have any time" to transmit a mayday signal as the plane was going down. Apparently, whatever happened on that plane happened so quickly that there was no time for any emergency message from the crew. 

Third, if there had been some kind of electrical malfunction or catastrophic systems failure at around 35,000 feet, the crew would certainly have had ample time to transmit some kind of mayday communication, however brief.  But the news reports I've read thus far indicate that the catastrophe happened too fast for them to broadcast any emergency messages.

So I ask myself, how could that be? What could have happened so suddenly at that altitude that would preclude any chance of the crew sounding an alarm?

Two grim possibilities come to mind.

1) Some kind of sudden structural failure crippled the jet at high altitude, leading to an immediate, explosive decompression and disintegration of the airframe.  While rare, this kind of freak accident has happened before, more than once. 

2) Terrorists on the flight itself detonated a bomb that brought the plane down.

Le Monde has reported that up to five middle-eastern passengers (three Moroccans and two Lebanese) were on board.

It may well be that severe weather or some type of freak structural failure brought that plane down, killing everyone.

Or, maybe it was . . . something else.

I hope we find the black boxes.

(NB: This entry was originally posted on June 1, 2009; updates were added subsequently.)

Related: Communiqué d'Air France suite à la disparition du vol Rio-Paris (current as of 9:00 p.m. ET, June 1, 2009).

UPDATES:

Who or What Disengaged the Autopilot?

Bomb threat on Air France flight

Air France Bomb Threat Before Flight 447 Crash

Behold the New GM! (An Amerikan Revolution)

Newsweek Editor: Obama Is "Sort Of God"

Evan Thomas said, "Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama's had, really, a different task. We're seen too often as the "bad guys." And he, he has a very different job from . . . Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is — we are above that now. We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something, I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above above the world, he's sort of God."

Catholic mother launches legal battle after son placed with gay foster parents

The mother of a 10-year-old Catholic boy has launched a legal battle after a council placed him with homosexual foster carers.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has told friends she is worried about the environment in which her son will grow up in, and would rather see him fostered by a man and a woman.

The child, who attends a faith school and is due to take his First Communion soon, is due to arrive tomorrow at his new foster home, a hotel in Brighton run by a middle-aged male couple.

Described as "bright and lively", he was placed in care a year ago by Brighton and Hove Council after his mother had a mental breakdown, suffering from an abusive marriage.

The Thomas More Legal Centre, a Catholic legal charity, are representing the mother, who wants to see him placed with a family that reflects traditional Catholic values. . . . (continue reading)

Gerald Celente: TEOTWAWKI Coming Soon

Human Events had the opportunity to interview forecaster extraordinaire Gerald Celente, President of Trends Research Institute, several days ago -- and the future he predicts looks bleak indeed.  In fact, as Mr. Celente sees it, the Great Depression will seem like a mild recession as what waits for us in 2011 hits with the force of a Katrina financial hurricane.

In case you’re wondering who Mr. Celente is (if this is still possible), he’s appeared -- along with his predictions -- on Oprah, CNBC, Reuters, NBC, PBS, BBC, the Glenn Beck Show -- the list goes on an on.  His Trends Report has been successfully predicting the major future trends impacting our lives for 3 decades, including calling the dot com crash back in the 1990's.

Mr. Celente's forecast on our impending future is based on his study of history.  He says we are bent on destroying our currency, bankrupting our government, and unleashing a violent citizen-against-citizen eruption as the economy collapses into chaos and martial law fascism.  

Quite a claim.  And God help us if he is right -- again.

“We’re sounding the alarm about the ongoing downward economic cycle”, Gerald told Human Events.  “In 2002, we predicted that the collapse of the American empire would fall like the World Trade Center in a thunderous crash -- in slow motion before our eyes.  And now it’s happening.”

Mr. Celente follows over 300 trends:  family, crime, war, education, consumer & business patterns which TRI synthesizes to predict the future.

“The US is becoming a shadow of what it used to be.  Take education for example.  The OECD group of developed countries ranks quality of life, education, health care of its member nations.  The US is now falling down the table as one piece of data after another shows America is in decline.  We’re no longer Win, Place or Show in quality of life, education, longevity… all the essentials where we used to be #1.  And our economic underpinnings are failing.” . . .

[ . . . ]

"How will it all end?," we queried.  Will the dollar survive?

"The dot com bubble should have burst and gone away in a short sharp recession.  But the boys at the Fed re-inflated the economy by lowering interest rates to a 46 year low -- and in turn created the real estate bubble -- much bigger than the dot com bubble. "

"Now they’re creating the bailout bubble -- which will ultimately dwarf the real estate bubble.  It will cause the implosion of the global economy world wide -- which will not be able to be repaired by creating yet another bubble.  Every time the government fails, it tells a bigger lie and then a still bigger lie."

"These previous bubbles were not allowed to pop -- but they didn’t destroy the infrastructure of the country.  This bailout bubble will."

"But this bubble will be the last one.  After the final blowout of the bailout bubble, we are concerned that the government will take the nation into war.   This is a historical precedent that’s been done over and over again."

"So, it’s not that the dollar will survive.  We may not even survive.  Look at the German mess after WWI.  It gave rise to Fascism and WWII. 

The next war will be fought with weapons of mass destruction." (source)

What C.S. Lewis thought about Mormons

C.S. Lewis was not LDS. He may, in fact, not have even liked The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But Mormons love C. S. Lewis.

Authors Marianna Richardson and Christine Thackeray looked at the famous Christian apologist in their book "C.S. Lewis: Latter-day Truths in Narnia." They wrote about the letters Lewis sent to many of his readers.

"(T)here is no record that Lewis had any contact with the Church but he did correspond regularly with a woman who lived in Salt Lake City," the authors write. "Although we do not have the original letter, Lewis's reply to her inquiry was as follows, 'I am afraid I am not going to be much help about all the religious bodies mentioned in your letter of March 2nd. I have always in my books been concerned simply to put forward "mere" Christianity, and am no guide on these (most regrettable) "interdenominational" questions. I do however strongly object to the tyrannic and unscriptural insolence of anything that calls itself a Church and makes teetotalism a condition of membership.'"

Lewis is apparently referring to the LDS Church and its "Word of Wisdom" prohibitions against drinking alcohol.

Richardson and Thackeray do not discuss another possible reference to Mormons in Lewis' works. In his Narnian fantasy book "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," he writes about the family of a rather unpleasant character named Eustace Scrubb: "They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotalers and wore a special kind of underclothes."

Because of this description, some have speculated that Lewis was saying that the Scrubbs were Mormons -- although such a conclusion requires ignoring other descriptions of the character and his family. The adopted son of Lewis, Douglas Gresham, has also been quoted as saying the Scrubbs were "simply faddists." . . . (Continue reading)

How Would You Introduce Christ to a Room Full of People?

Episcopal Diocese Elects Ex-Catholic turned Buddhist as Bishop?

Here's one take on this very odd happenstance of a Catholic-turned-Episcopalian-turned-Buddhist "practicioner"-turned Episcopal "bishop." Then, here's the odd-as-a-three-dollar-bill background info, and then here's the "official" version:

EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN
2-21-09 — For Immediate Release

(Escanaba, MI) --The Diocese of Northern Michigan created an Episcopal Ministry Support Team and elected Kevin Thew Forrester as bishop at a Special Diocesan Convention on Saturday, February 21, 2009 at St.Stephen’s Church, Escanaba. Thew Forrester was elected on the first ballot and satisfying the Diocesan Constitution and canons, received 88% of the delegate votes and 91% of the congregational votes. Thew Forrester has been serving the diocese since 2001, first as MinistryDevelopment Coordinator and later in 2007 as Rector/Ministry Developerof St. Paul’s Church in Marquette and St. John’s Church in Negaunee.

Following the death of Bishop Jim Kelsey in an automobile accident inJune 2007, an extended time of reflection and discernment ensued. As result, and after 27 years of living into “baptismal ministry,” theDiocese decided to apply its extensive experience of developing local,shared leadership to the ministry of episcopal oversight. Bishop Kelsey’s initial experiment with a “Core Team” paved the way for the concept of an Episcopal Ministry Support Team (EMST), in which the bishop will focus on pastoral, relational and canonical tasks while serving as one of twelve members, which also includes compensated ministry developers, a diocesan staff person and regional representatives.

The Discernment Team, composed of twenty-one members (representing 70%of the congregations of the diocese) worked closely with Jo Gantzer(Diocese of Michigan) as its Companion and three Reflectors from the wider church: Bishops Bruce Caldwell (Wyoming) and Tom Ely (Vermont) and Fredrica Harris Thompsett, recently retired professor at the Episcopal Divinity School. They worked for nearly a year before presenting a single name for bishop as well as identifying EMST members who where affirmed during the Special Convention.

Prior to the naming of the EMST and bishop-nominee, the Discernment Team presented its work-to-date and its proposed process to the Annual Diocesan Convention last October. It received an overwhelming vote of confidence, with 94% of the delegates voting to affirm. 
Upon the successful completion of the consent process, the Episcopal Ministry Support Team will be commissioned and the bishop ordained on October 17, 2009 in Marquette, Michigan.

"Answering Atheism and the Culture of Doubt" Summer Conference, July 10-12

Speakers List:

• Edward Feser, Ph.D.
• Msrg. Stuart W. Swetland, S.T.D.
• Héctor Antonio Molina
• Benjamin Wiker, Ph.D.
• Dawn Eden
• Ken Hensley
• Patrick Madrid

Who: Some of today’s top Catholic leaders, gathered together to help the Church build a culture of life.

What: A very special 3-day Catholic conference on answering atheism and the culture of doubt.

Where: Belmont Abbey College campus, 15 minutes from downtown Charlotte, NC.

When: Friday, July 10, through Sunday, July 12, 2009.

Schedule: The conference begins at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, July 10, and ends at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 12.

Cost: (Register here)

"Up Close" Pictures of an Anti-Christ

Wishing you weren't here.

Two Words You Should Become Familiar With: "Prolonged Detention"

A Double Tragedy for a Catholic Family in Phoenix

I am stunned by the terrible news I just read about the death, due to complications in childbirth, of Kerry Martin, wife of the Treasurer of the State of Arizona, Dean Martin. The child she was delivering, a boy, also died.

I had lunch with Dean and Kerry at an intimate Catholic gathering in Phoenix last year at which I gave a talk about the work of the Envoy Institute. What a delightful and happy couple they were! The three of us chatted for 15 minutes or so about his career, and in particular how his strong Catholic Faith and equally strong Pro-Life convictions affected, for better or worse, his work in the state government. I have a vivid memory of also talking one-on-one with Kerry for a little while about homeschooling. She was beaming and sweet and clearly very much in love with her husband, proud of his burgeoning career, and happy to be a busy young mom of a young family. And now she's gone.

Receive, Lord, your servant Kerry into the place of salvation, which she hopes to obtain through your mercy. Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

Kerry Martin liked to play a game with the child she was carrying.

She set a remote control on top of her stomach, and waited for the baby to kick it off. He always did.

"They did this every night," said her husband, state Treasurer Dean Martin, at the funeral Wednesday for his wife and infant son. "And it was so much fun to watch."

Martin talked about his wife and their only son, Austin Michael Martin, before a large and somber crowd at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Phoenix. Hundreds of mourners packed the pews and lined the back walls as Father John Greb celebrated a funeral Mass for the Martins.

Kerry Martin died at 34 on May 25, hours after delivering Austin, as a consequence of the rupture of a benign tumor on her liver. Austin died two days later as a result of complications from the birth. . .  (continue reading)

The Murder Story the Mainstream Media Refuses to Cover

Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch discusses the glaring double standard in the MSM regarding its heavy coverage (on the one hand) of the murder of that abortion doctor and its virtual silence and lack of coverage (on the other hand) of the murder of a U.S. soldier by a Muslim "jihadist" fanatic. The first murder has been widely associated with Christianity and the Pro-Life Movement, even though inumerable Christian and Pro-life leaders have publicly condemned that deplorable act while, on the other hand, there has been no similar outcry of condemnation by Muslim leaders regarding the murder of a solider by that Muslim.

As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise."

"Care for an Entrée With Your Entrée?" Gluttony, the Forgotten Sin

Catering to gluttony is big business these days. Practically every restaurant — including all the popular chains that you and I and every other American dines at, now and then —  goes way overboard in the super-sized portions they dish up and the bad-for-your-health ingredients in the food. For example, check out what one recent scientific study discovered about some dishes served at a very popular Italian food restaurant chain. 

And if you really want the gory details of what you're packing into your gullet when you sit down for lunch or dinner at just about any other chain restaurant (I'm not talking fast food here, by the way. I'm talking those nice sit-down restaurants), feast your eyes on this "Xtreme Eating 2009" report which explains exactly how much fat, sodium, and calories you'll ingest the next time you order.  And if you tend toward items on the menu that fall into what is commonly thought of as the "Mediterranean diet," you may want to pick something else, once you've read about that in the Xtreme Eating report. 

But aside from the physical damage that gluttony does to the body, Many no longer understand that gluttony is a sin and have lost any comprehension of the spiritual damage it causes.  Check out this snippet of what St. Thomas had to say on the subject: 

Gregory says (Moral. xxx, 18) that 'unless we first tame the enemy dwelling within us, namely our gluttonous appetite, we have not even stood up to engage in the spiritual combat.' But man's inward enemy is sin. Therefore gluttony is a sin.

[...] gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire. 

"As long as the vice of gluttony has a hold on a man, all that he has done valiantly is forfeited by him: and as long as the belly is unrestrained, all virtue comes to naught." But virtue is not done away save by mortal sin. Therefore gluttony is a mortal sin. (Summa Theologiae, II-IIae, Q. 148, a. 1 & 2).

The Catholic Encyclopedia contains this entry:

Gluttony

(From Latin: gluttire, to swallow, to gulp down), the excessive indulgence in food and drink. The moral deformity discernible in this vice lies in its defiance of the order postulated by reason, which prescribes necessity as the measure of indulgence in eating and drinking.

This deordination, according to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor, may happen in five ways which are set forth in the scholastic verse: "Prae-propere, laute, nimis, ardenter, studiose" or, according to the apt rendering of Father Joseph Rickably: too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, too daintily. Clearly one who uses food or drink in such a way as to injure his health or impair the mental equipment needed for the discharge of his duties, is guilty of the sin of gluttony.

It is incontrovertible that to eat or drink for the mere pleasure of the experience, and for that exclusively, is likewise to commit the sin of gluttony. Such a temper of soul is equivalently the direct and positive shutting out of that reference to our last end which must be found, at least implicitly, in all our actions. At the same time it must be noted that there is no obligation to formerly and explicitly have before one's mind a motive which will immediately relate our actions to God. It is enough that such an intention should be implied in the apprehension of the thing as lawful with a consequent virtual submission to Almighty God.

Gluttony is in general a venial sin in so far forth as it is an undue indulgence in a thing which is in itself neither good nor bad. Of course it is obvious that a different estimate would have to be given of one so wedded to the pleasures of the table as to absolutely and without qualification live merely to eat and drink, so minded as to be of the number of those, described by the Apostle St. Paul, "whose god is their belly" (Philippians 3:19). Such a one would be guilty of mortal sin.

Likewise a person who, by excesses in eating and drinking, would have greatly impaired his health, or unfitted himself for duties for the performance of which he has a grave obligation, would be justly chargeable with mortal sin.

St. John of the Cross, in his work "The Dark Night of the Soul" (I, vi), dissects what he calls spiritual gluttony. He explains that it is the disposition of those who, in prayer and other acts of religion, are always in search of sensible sweetness; they are those who "will feel and taste God, as if he were palpable and accessible to them not only in Communion but in all their other acts of devotion." This he declares is a very great imperfection and productive of great evils. (source)

 

That Sound You Hear Is Francis Schaeffer Rolling Over in His Grave

Lifesite News is reporting that Frank Schaeffer, son of the late, prominent Calvinist theologian Francis Schaeffer, has "apologized for his involvement with the 'hate-filled rhetoric' he associated with the 'religious right.'" 

My sole personal contact with Frank Schaeffer was a single phone conversation with him, back in the mid-90s. We spoke at some  length about why he had left Evangelicalism for the East, his father's legacy, and his own writings (the first edition of Portofino had recently come out, if I recall correctly, and he was kind enough to send me an inscribed copy). While I didn't agree with some of his positions (e.g., his enchantment with Orthodoxy) he seemed to me then to be reasonable, very pleasant, and level-headed. But the report I quote from below gives me the impression that he has gone off the deep end in the meantime.

Before I get to that, here's a snippet of a recent opinion piece he wrote for the execrable Huffington Post, which should provide a sense of where his head is at these days: 

The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as "murderers." And today once again the "pro-life" leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I'd like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for preforming abortions that I -- and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words. (source)

Foolish and incendiary words, indeed. 

I can't tell if they are the words of a man who has lost his moral bearings altogether (he now says abortion should remain legal and demonizes the Prolife Movement, and in particular, the Catholic Church, as a "hate machine"), or if he's just a coward who has abandoned his convictions because, had he remained faithful to them, he would earn only opprobrium and rejection from the fashionable, "progressive" Huffington-Post crowd he consorts with now.

As an aside. Let's not forget that Christians who want to remain popular and "in" with the "In Crowd" will be tempted to sacrifice their allegiance to the truth for the sake of human respect. Tragicaly, some give in to that temptation and make a wrong turn, gambolling down that wide and well-travelled road which Christ warned us away from, a road that leads directly toward a dark horizon. 

Here is the LifeSite report about Schaeffer's latest comments:

Earlier this year Frank Schaeffer, who has joined the Greek Orthodox Church but is still considered a leader of the Evangelical movement, abandoned the strong pro-life position of his father and told an interviewer that he believes abortion should remain legal. Schaeffer said that thirty years of attempts to overturn the US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade have failed and that the “black and white” pro-life position is counterproductive.

"The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as 'murderers,'" wrote Schaeffer this week. "And today once again the 'pro-life' leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words.

"The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility," he continued. "But I'd like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for performing abortions that I -- and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church, all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words." (Continue reading)