Structural integrity

Captain John Cox, a flight operations group member at the London-based Royal Aeronautical Society, was interviewed yesterday about the crash of Air France flight 447. He said, "Planes that explode in mid-air don’t have time to send those sort of error messages for the next four minutes." But on Wednesday morning, Dr. F. B. Sphere, an aviation safety specialist with the Man-Bunny Transportation and Safety Board, spoke to reporters by telephone from the island of Comoros, where he is part of the investigation into Yemenia Airways flight 626.

"I've worked with Captain Cox," Dr. Sphere said, "and I have nothing but respect for his abilitities, but I honestly don't know where he gets off. Now it's true, we've found no evidence of a large-scale detonation. I do not expect to be reporting to you that a tactical nuclear weapon went off in the overhead bin. But somebody like Captain Cox ought to know better than this. People need to understand, there is more than one way to skin this cat."

Dr. Sphere was reluctant to offer speculation, but would go far enough to say, "Who knows? Some idiot packs a half-empty butane canister into the unpressurized cargo hold. A box of Ohio Blue-Tips [matches] makes its way past a sleepy security guard and gets bounced around in the turbulence. Look, it could be anything, any number of small explosive or incendiary events leading to a cascade of electrical failures. My French is a little rusty, but they use a timeless expression for this: shit happens."

Dr. Sphere stressed that the Man-Bunny Transportation and Safety Board has reached no firm conclusions regarding the crash of AF 447, and he emphasized that more conventional causes such as the much-discussed pitot tubes remain prime suspects. "But I am frustrated," he added, "by the number of otherwise competent aviation experts who are willing to dismiss, and even categorically rule out, an explosive event, and for such stupid reasons. I don't know, maybe they've seen too many movies."