In the post/link by skadi above, the article says at one point:
Since the authority, manufacturer, and operator are all aware of the story, it is reasonable to deduce that were a material part of the widely reported incident not true, then that would have been stated rather quickly.
That's a rather sweeping statement and not one with much logical basis. The actual facts of an incident under investigation are not suitable or permitted for dissemination - the Bombardier advisory wire makes that clear. So neither the agencies nor the OEM nor the operator nor anyone else with access to the facts is going to get into issuing specific denials of specific aspects of speculative news stories. The act of doing so would in effect be confirming the parts you don't deny. Since at least some of the original "facts" have been stated to be untrue by people who should know, I would tend to assume that anything from the same source or sources be considered equally dubious
I believe the CIA has a similar "neither confirm nor deny" policy.
