Austria did not search Morales jet in Vienna said Austria's president

[flamingdem]

** One conspiracy theory down on Evogate, about 50 to go!


http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/07/us-usa-security-snowden-austria-idUSBRE96605K20130707

One airport officer did board the aircraft on Tuesday to find out why it had landed in Vienna reporting technical problems, but "there was no formal inspection", Austrian President Heinz Fischer told Kurier newspaper.

Fischer's comments, published on Sunday, appeared aimed at untangling contradictory accounts of how Bolivian President Evo Morales was treated as he flew home from a conference in Moscow last week.

--

"Someone from the airport staff sought out the aircraft or the pilot after landing to inquire about the nature of the technical problem," Fischer was quoted as saying.

"The Austrian official was advised that the defect was already fixed, and saw on this occasion that the plane was empty ... He did not look under the seats. There was no formal inspection, but no other people were found on board," Fischer added.

Pressed on whether that meant Austrians had not searched the plane, he said:
"There was no search in the forensic sense. There was also no reason to under international law. The plane of a president belongs to 'his territory' and cannot be searched readily."

[Cha]

1. Yeah, I admit.. I can't keep up. thanks for your big help

in fleshing out the CS, flamingdem.

I do seem to remember something about Pres Morales' plane being searched. That was supposedly in Austria then.

[flamingdem]

2. It's a full time job Cha

Only for the obsessed. I should be sleeping

The funny thing is that it is clear the parties involved can barely keep up.

That Eddie Snowden has created a massive clustercluck!

[Cha]

7. I know it's a full time job! Swatting down all those CT.. and that's just the

more wide spread ones. “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." Go all Mark Twain on ya, flamingdem.

I have a touch of that obsession going but, I'm a just a piker by comparison.

[ProSense]

27. See post # 26.

[Bonobo]

3. "There was no search in the forensic sense"

"It depends on your definition of what 'is' is"

[flamingdem]

5. You really didn't like the information presented here

I see. I think people underestimate incompetence and emotion even if it happens to be the international stage.

Evo got emotional because communications were incompetent.

But the idea that the US didn't know if Snowden was on that flight is far fetched. They've got tails on him in Moscow. That is a lot easier to believe.

[Demit]

12. Interesting how the president qualified his answer: 'no FORENSIC search'.

So that narrows it down to all the other kinds of searches there are.

And someone did board the plane to "find out why it had landed in Vienna reporting technical problems." Seems like a query that could have been made over the phone, without the need for coming on board, doesn't it?


(edited to put the d in board that my computer didn't want to)

[Bonobo]

13. Clear weasel words.

Plenty of room to walk back. Obvious weasel language is obvious.

[OregonBlue]

29. Possible that they checked to make sure the plane was not being held hostage.

[pinboy3niner]

4. Meaningless

It's clear that routine flight permissions were denied--even more exceptionally, in this case--for a head of state.

Now, if you have a MAP I might change my mind...

[flamingdem]

6. I'm not up on the map joke

It must have been good but I'll admit that I am disappointed that you mention it to me.
Sides have been taken on this one. This is series!!

[pinboy3niner]

9. Yes, it appears that sides have been taken

Some seem to see it in terms of an attack Obama/defend Obama thing. But many of us are not invested in either side. I think the way a South American head of state was treated is outrageous, and serious.

The map thing is just a hilarious DU footnote to the affair. Sorry you missed it--it was a hoot!

[okaawhatever]

35. If you're referring to the map that was posted early on that showed a map of moscow,

many chuckled as the article was about the flight path taken by the aircraft. The map was before clicking onto the article. Had someone taken the time to read the article, they would see there was a link to a radar system and the map was just a visual of the fact that the airport where Snowden was was across town from the airport Morales jet took off from. They were making the point that Snowden would have had to be driven across town and that whoever is watching for Snowden would have likely noticed his leaving or being transported.

As to your claim that the way Morales was treated, asking for a priority landing for an instrument error is serious. The notion that it was fixed so easily, is suspect. Ask some pilots you know and see if they think a pilot who had a failure on their fuel gauge would land (I guess it started working again?) and then take off on a trans Atlantic flight without having it inspected. That portion is highly suspect.

[flamingdem]

8. I got your map ovuh here and it ain't Cudahay

[magellan]

10. And yet somehow President Morales got the Austrian Foreign Minister

...to the airport to talk about how air space was closed in other countries over concerns Snowden was on board, and the Austrian Interior Minister to discuss how "many other countries apparently feared that Snowden was on board too" but that Austria had no such fear so allowed the plane to land.

You'd think if it was just a simple matter of a fuel gauge malfunction or under-fueling, that would have been what Austrian officials were saying about why the plane landed there -- if any reporter hadn't lost interest by then and gone to work on a more interesting story. It's hard to believe officials as high up as the foreign and interior ministers would have gone along with an alleged cover-up story involving Snowden just to spare Morales's pilot his blushes.

I expect that in light of the story in the OP, Austrian President Fischer will come down hard on his ministers for engaging in conspiracy theories.

[temmer]

11. pardon?

You say:

And yet somehow President Morales got the Austrian Foreign Minister to the airport to talk about how air space was closed in other countries over concerns Snowden was on board...

I didn't find this claim in the Reuters link you quote from.

Please elaborate.

[magellan]

22. It was only all over the news

,,,and much reported here. The link is one I found today.

eta: sorry, I mean the link in my comment quoting the interior minister is one I found today.

[temmer]

14. "** One conspiracy theory down on Evogate, about 50 to go!" - huh?

I get the lousy feeling that you only pretend to have found what you claim to have found.

Which conspiracy exactly goes down with this interview? Which sentences of Fischer exactly support your insinuation that Evo Morales is inventing stories?

Please elaborate.

[MNBrewer]

15. These are not the straws you're grasping for

[cali]

16. Hardly. Someone is lying. I think it's the Austrian President

You think it's the Bolivian President. I can post stories that say it was searched. You, of course, think that European Presidents are more credible than South American ones.

[temmer]

19. I have translated the original interview here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023188760 post #24

there's agreement between Morales and Fischer when it comes to the nature of the search. Did the Bolivians ever claim that their plane was officially searched? I don't think so.

excerpt of the Fischer interview:

Morales was forced to land because the USA thought Ed Snowden was on board. Did you really have a thorough look if he was on board as a stowaway?

- What I was told has also been confirmed by President Morales and the Interior minister: the plane asked for allowance to land because of technical problems. Therefore someone of the airport personnel went to the plane/pilot to ask for the nature of the technical problem. The Austrian official was told that the problem was solved already, and on this occasion he noticed that the plane was empty. He didn't have a look underneath the seats. There has been no official searching, but there were no additional persons on board.

[flamingdem]

25. Thanks, so this fits what was said in the article

right?

[cali]

17. hey, flaming, can you tell me the difference between informal searches and formal searches?

No? Didn't think so.

What a load of bullshit. Your article makes clear that the the plane was searched. The statement of Fischer is contemptibly weasel worded. It's pathetic. Embarrassing.

[flamingdem]

18. This follows what I read at the time. Austria knew zero about the Bolivian plane

and they went on board to do a passport check and it was empty.
So if you call looking at an empty plane a search, that's all they said then and that's all they say now.

[temmer]

20. What do you mean "Austria knew zero about the Bolivian plane"?

Another blurry statement. Another attempt to insinuate that Fischer's interview make Morales look bad. It doesn't. Just to the contrary, Fischer emphasizes that Morales is his friend and supports him in his anti-US drug policy (Coca).

[cali]

21. lol. you really have to twist yourself into a pretzel to believe what you're believing

about this entire incident.

not a big fan of Occam's Razor are you?

It's funny as hell to watch though.

[magellan]

23. Is it normal for a foreign minister to get involved in passport checks? n/t

[OregonBlue]

30. It's possible that the Austrians wanted to make sure that the plane was not forced to land. That

there was no one on the plane holding people hostage, etc. In that case, a walk-thru would seem reasonable.

[kenny blankenship]

31. They didn't dump out the contents of suitcases on the ground

or swab any armrests and headrests for "Snowden residue", or feed a micro camera down into auxillary fuel tanks to see if someone was hiding in there, causing a problem with the fuel level. In other words, it was not "forensically searched" - just boarded.

[ProSense]

26. So the Austrian and Bolivian governments now agree:

Karl-Heinz Grundböck, a spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry, said that the Austrian border authorities carried out a routine check of the passports of everyone aboard Mr. Morales’s plane after it landed and that they were also granted permission to search the plane to ensure that Mr. Snowden was not aboard. “The rumors were just that,” Mr. Grundböck said.

But in La Paz, officials said no search had taken place, contending that it would be improper to search the plane of a head of state. As for the forced diversion of the flight, the vice president of Bolivia, Álvaro García Linera, equated it to a kidnapping.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/world/snowden.html

[dawg]

28. See, no search.

Just a "routine" passport check for everyone on the plane.

[Whisp]

32. but they had eyes!

dammit, it Was a search, they had Eyes and they didn't shut them!

[dawg]

33. But just walking through a plane, looking around, asking for everyone's papers ...

only a fool would consider that searching the plane. Why, it was just good old fashioned Austrian hospitality.

[Cha]

36. Wow, ProSense.. it sounds like they

don't agree..

But in La Paz, officials said no search had taken place, contending that it would be improper to search the plane of a head of state.

"Kidnapping"?

[ProSense]

37. Yeah, I doubt they

agree on "kidnapping," but they do agree "no search had taken place."

[reorg]

34. "someone" from the "airport staff", working for Austrian intelligence

according to Lieutenant-Colonel Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of Referat III of the airport police, which is in charge of alien and border control:

"The airport police had nothing to do with the plane of Evo Morales, it was immediately approached by the colleagues of the BVT, the Federal Agency for State Protection and Counter Terrorism (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekämpfung).

http://diepresse.com/home/panorama/welt/1427309/Staatenlos_Endstation-Flughafen?direct=1416110&_vl_backlink=/home/politik/index.do&selChannel=103

[temmer]

38. very interesting information - danke schoen!

Matches roughly what Peter Pilz said:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023174554

The Vienna incident more and more becomes a Rashomon phenomenon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon