DenisG said
With regard to your posting above concerning the pressure that is being piled up from " ...political and economic power...", let's please not forget that everybody in this forum who is participating in the discussion about AF447's accident cause, including me, is contributing to this pressure as well, which is in many perspectives a very positive development, compared to e.g. 15 years ago.
I understand what you are saying but I disagree on some aspects. Even if the Internet medium is today a major tool in communication and propagation of opinions and ideas, I do not think that a State Agency such as AAIB,BEA,NTSB etc...in charge of an aviation disaster would have time to watch various forum, including the best of them and to act according to what they read. No, imho pressure are really coming from political an economical powers. In my country like in many others, political and economical worlds are so tightly linked that you can barely make a difference and determine who
exactly gives orders to the other.
Two days ago, as I relayed here (I'm not a journalist btw, just working in the Aviation industry and consider myself as a SLF) Mr Mariani (junior minister of Transport) said publicly that a report would be doubtless published "late June". Very well, let's wait. Normally a statement from a minister should not be contradict two days after. Yesterday we learned that the BEA will made a major update in one week. The BEA being a State agency they are obviously under pressure of their management that is to say the ministry. And they certainly won't do that unless authorized by their management. Even a representative of a victims association wonders if the things are not going too fast now . We are walking on the head, with a situation where (almost) the same peoples, who, some months ago were asking for more transparency, efficiency and speediness, are now begging for less precipitation to guarantee a reliable result for the manifestation of truth. But PHG spoke very opportunely and at the same time we learn that AFR-KLM, who needs to renew its long haul fleet will postpone its choice until this Summer.
JPI33600 said
IMHO, the BEA didn't exactly told Le Figaro to "shut the (whatever) up" ; their phrasing was very carefully chosen : "The BEA [...] alone has the right to communicate on the progress of the investigation. [...] any information [...] from another source is null [...]" (check the BEA site for the full sentence) : translation : "neither Airbus nor Air France nor anybody else in the industry is supposed to communicate on this subject". Thus they don't order Le Figaro to stop publishing, they just question the reliability of Le Figaro's source, according to the fact there has been no official info from BEA.
Exactly, but like in other democratic societies with a free press, journalists publish informations that they consider reliable. In France, the sources of the journalists are kept secret. Periodically this debate about the sources secrecy is coming on the public scene because of sensible informations published in such domains as politic or Justice. The political power, sometimes, is really annoyed with that.