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AIR FRANCE LOSES PLANE BUT SECURES LUGGAGE

June 1 2009

Paris, France – The history of aviation has always been a mixture of peril and excitement. From the earliest days of air travel to the modern day the process of sending human beings hurtling through the sky has been continuously evolving and in its present form has become the most efficient and safest form of long distance travel
ever created. Safe though can be a relative term and despite the procedures put into place occasionally accidents do occur; such is the case with an Air France flight en route from Rio.

The sudden disappearance of the Airbus 330-200 with 216 people aboard has called into question, just as all airborne tragedies do, the safety of air travel. It has also called into question the tracking procedures put in place to ensure that all planes are accounted for. The search for the missing plane has already begun and while many fear the worst, some are concerned that the massive expanse of the Atlantic Ocean may have claimed yet another victim. Luckily for survivors though, much of the luggage missed the flight and will be returned.

“Air France is extremely distraught and the whole team of Air France is suffering,” said Pierre Henri Gourgeon, the chief executive of Air France-KLM. “We would like to say to the relatives of the victims that we are totally with them and will make every effort to help them.”

Air France officials are currently on scene in Paris to help relatives and arrange for transport of the surviving luggage.

“Airlines throughout the world have always struggled with technical problems and none have been as daunting and as embarrassing as lost luggage. In a lot of ways
lost luggage has become the greatest fear of most travellers. Certainly people worry about a terrorist attack or a crash but those are so rare now that it really isn’t a though in the majority of travellers minds, but lost luggage surely is,” said Scrape TV Airline analyst Jeffry Johnson. “In this case that failure has a silver lining. Sure getting back a load of dirty clothes isn’t exactly the same as having your mother or father back but at least you have something to come away with. Most family members of airplane crash victims come away with nothing.”

The missing luggage is reportedly already on its way from Rio to Paris and will begin to make its way to families and friends by tomorrow. It’s believed that about 60 per cent of the luggage was absent from the missing flight.

“Maybe the bigger issue here is whether or not the missing luggage and the missing plane area symptom of the same disease. It could very well be that the process they are using to keep track of the baggage is that same that they are using to keep track of the planes and that system is simply faulty. If that’s the case then they may never find the plane and it doesn’t bode well for future luggage transport,” continued Johnson. “Of course the two could have been coincidental and perhaps the plane isn’t accidentally missing. It could be that the crew or passengers or both decided to simply fall off the grid and leave the modern world behind. If that’s the case we may never know what happened.”

Many planes have disappeared over the oceans, the most famous of which was the disappearance of Amelia Earhart in 1937.

“It was much easier for Earhart to disappear because it was one person. Wrapping up a couple hundred people in a conspiracy would be a lot more difficult but of course not entirely impossible,” continued Johnson. “It could also of course be something far more sinister like the plot of ‘Lost’. There could be entities at play here of which we simply have no comprehension and may never be able to resolve. That is of course assuming that the television show and this real life event aren’t intertwined. If that is the case then we just need to wait for the final episode.”

Air France has denied any problems with their luggage tracking system. Calls to J.J. Abrams, the creatore of ‘Lost’, went unanswered.    

Emil Uliya, International Correspondent

NEWS > EVERYONE ELSE > AIR FRANCE LOSES PLANE BUT SECURES LUGGAGE