With all due respect, your post, Nhalyn,is a perfect example of the desire to cover up facts that the second article refers to. I am also French and proud of it, but the facts are the facts, and the conclusions and outcomes irrefutable. It is not because 15 French individuals are negligent that the whole country is to blame. And besides, if you take the position that this is shameful, then you trade one type of shame for another. If the FOD thoery is followed to conclusion, then BAE Aerospatiale (latter part emphasized) is responsible for a poor design that killed people. If the facts are followed, maintenance error, compounded by pilot error, caused this. And either way, it is likely the pilot heroically decided to lift the plane off the ground knowing it would not fly for long, to avoid a much greater tragedy of hitting the B747. In any case, it is good that more facts are coming to light about this.

And I am not singling out the pilot or ground crew. The manufacturer probably did not play a role here, but certainly has in other situations that were whitewashed, including the disastrous safety record of the DC-10 (an aircraft that should never have been allowed into the air) and the more recent outrage that is AF449. Here, the aircraft is clearly to blame, specifically the autopilot and flight systems. But this will be covered up as it would imply that all Airbus aircraft are defective in this regard (which I believe they are, and which I believe we will continue to see air disasters with). It is more convenient to blame a $200 Thales part and the pilots.