This is not good news: Brazil and France disagree over whether any of the debris claimed to have been spotted by Brazil is really from the missing flight.

France is saying that the debris located so far is not necessarily from the plane at all. The only material that has actually been hauled up and viewed up close, a cargo pallet, is not of the type that was on the airplane, and the rest of the debris was sighted from the air but bad weather has made it impossible to recover it yet. In addition, the reported oil slick is not from Flight 447 either, although they’ve spotted another oil slick that might be from the downed plane.

In other words, confusion and mystery abound.

Other information indicates a mechanical problem of some sort (including the possibility of a Hal-like computer malfunction), probably compounded by bad weather. In other words, if the cause of the crash was in fact a bomb (something that cannot yet be ruled out), the timing would have been especially coincidental—the catastrophic event began only a few minutes after the pilot had radioed that he was entering an area of highly unstable weather:

The last message from the pilot was a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time Sunday saying he was flying through an area of black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning.

Although that was the final message from the pilot, it was not the final message from the plane:

At 11:10 p.m., a cascade of problems began: the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems. Then, systems for monitoring air speed, altitude and direction failed. Controls over the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well. At 11:14 p.m., a final automatic message signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure as the plane was breaking apart.

So although the possibility of a bomb remains, it does not appear to be the most likely explanation.

And then there’s the phenomenon that seems to come with every tragic crash: the many “there but for” tales of those who were supposed to be on the plane but missed it for various reasons only to subsequently hear that the plane went down and took the lives of all aboard. Some people find such a near-miss very difficult to weather, despite their relief at being alive.

This tale of four people who might easily have been on the doomed Air France 447 is typical of those that emerge after nearly every crash. Inability to get a ticket despite Herculean efforts. An early arrival at the airport allowing a departure on an earlier flight.

The psychological repercussions are varied, but a certain percentage of such people have lasting problems:

“Survivors” like these often need psychological counseling, said Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, whose father was among the 170 people killed in 1989 when Libyan terrorists downed UTA Flight 772 with a suitcase bomb. He now heads an association that helps victims of airline disasters.

“They lost their flying licenses because of big psychological problems or alcoholism,” he said.

The Lockerbie crash has a similar story, particularly spotlighted in the case of the “271st victim”:

Jaswant Basuta, a Sikh of Indian nationality, was checked in for Pan Am Flight 103, but arrived at the boarding gate too late. Having attended a family wedding in Belfast, Basuta was returning to New York where the 47-year old car mechanic was about to start a new job. Friends and relatives from nearby Southall came to see him off at the airport terminal, and bought him drinks in the upstairs bar. When “gate closing” flashed on the departure screen, Basuta hurried through security and passport control and sprinted to the departure gate, but the room was empty except for Pan Am ground staff who denied him access to the aircraft.

Basuta was initially considered a suspect as his checked baggage had been on the flight without him. After questioning at Heathrow police station, he was released without charge. Twenty years later, in an interview with the BBC, Basuta talked about his narrow escape from death: “I should have been the 271st victim and I still feel terrible for all the other people who died.”

One of the things that went unmentioned in the Wiki article is why Basuta may have been considered an especially suspicious suspect. The Lockerbie crash occurred in 1988 over Scotland, a mere three years after Air India Flight 182 was brought down by a terrorist bomb over the Atlantic Ocean in Irish airspace, killing all 329 people aboard, most of them Canadians of Indian descent. The death toll was therefore even higher than the dreadful total of 270 (including those on land) who died at Lockerbie.

The perpetrators of the Air India bombing? Sikhs separatists based in Canada, bent on revenge for the 1984 attack on the Sikh shrine known as the Golden Temple (that event also served as motivation for the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi; I’ve written at length about both here). And the bomb in the Air India crash had been carried on the plane in a suitcase that was unaccompanied by its owner, just as had happened with Basuta and the Lockerbie flight.

The Air India crash has other commonalities with the current Air France situation, especially the recovery operation. The former broke apart over water 6700 feet deep, and finding the black box was very challenging. The Air France flight is estimated to be in waters that are between 9,000 and 14,000 feet deep, an even more daunting situation.

It’s not an impossible one, however, even if the black box is not found within the 30-day window of opportunity in which it emits “pings” to help with its location:

n 1987, a South African Airways 747 crashed into the Indian Ocean off the island nation of Mauritius, sinking to a depth of about 16,000 feet. After an unsuccessful two-month search by the South African military, the U.S. Navy was able to locate the wreckage and the cockpit voice recorder. The accident was eventually blamed on cargo that caught fire.

Let’s hope that some answers are found before too long, so that the families and loved ones of the dead do not have to continue to endure this terrible uncertainty along with their grief.