Plane likely Broke Apart During Violent Storm

Air France has told families of passengers on Flight 447 that the jetliner broke apart and they must abandon hope that anyone survived, a grief counselor said Thursday as military aircraft tried to narrow their search for the remains of the plane.

Air France’s CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told the families in a private meeting that the plane broke apart either in the air or when it slammed into the ocean, according to Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, who was asked by Paris prosecutors to help counsel family members and was at the Wednesday meeting with Air France. The plane, carrying 228 people, disappeared after leaving Rio de Janeiro for Paris on Sunday night.

Investigators were relying heavily on the plane’s automated messages to help reconstruct what happened to the jet as it flew through towering thunderstorms. They detail a series of failures that end with its systems shutting down, suggesting the plane broke apart in the sky, according to an aviation industry official with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday because he was not authorized to discuss the crash.

“What is clear is that there was no landing. There’s no chance the escape slides came out,” said Denoix de Saint-Marc, who heads an association founded for victims of UTA flight 772, shot down in 1989 by Libyan terrorists.

Gourgeon told families there were no survivors, according to Denoix de Saint-Marc. That would make this Air France’s deadliest plane crash, and the world’s worst commercial air accident since 2001.

Military rescue planes were trying to narrow the search zone Thursday as ships headed to the site to recover wreckage.

Brazilian military planes located new debris from Air France Flight 447 Wednesday, after spotting an airline seat and oil slick on Tuesday.

But French military spokesman Christophe Prazuck said Thursday that French planes had made six missions over the area and have yet to spot any wreckage.

“As of today French planes have not found any debris that could have come from the Air France Airbus that disappeared. There have been radar detections made by the AWACS (radar plane) … and each time these signals have not corresponded to debris,” Prazuck said.

He said French teams have been searching in different places and at different times from the Brazilian search teams, which may be why they have not been able to identify the seats and other debris that the Brazilians picked up.

Three more French overflights were planned for Thursday, Prazuck said. A U.S. Navy P-3C Orion surveillance plane has also joined Brazil’s Air Force in trying to spot debris.

Brazil’s Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said debris discovered so far was spread over a wide area, with some 230 kilometers (140 miles) separating pieces of wreckage they have spotted. The overall zone is roughly 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil’s northern coast, where the ocean floor drops as low as 22,950 feet (7,000 meters) below sea level.

The floating debris includes a 23-foot (seven-meter) chunk of plane, but pilots have spotted no signs of survivors, Brazilian Air Force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said.

Heavy weather delayed until next week the arrival of deep-water submersibles considered key to finding the black box voice and data recorders that will help answer the question of what happened to the airliner.

But even with the equipment, the lead French investigator questioned whether the recorders would ever be found in such a deep and rugged part of the ocean.

The plane’s last automated messages detail a series of failures that end with its systems shutting down, suggesting the plane broke apart in the sky, according to an aviation industry official with knowledge of the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the crash.

The pilot sent 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.

Ten minutes later, a cascade of problems began: Automatic messages indicate 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.

Three minutes after that, more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Control of the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well.

The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure — catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean.

Air France spokesman Nicolas Petteau referred questions about the messages to the French accident investigation agency, BEA, whose spokesman Martine Del Bono said the agency declined to comment. Brazil’s defense minister Nelson Jobim also declined to comment, saying that the accident investigation is being done by France. Brazil is leading the recovery effort.

Other experts agreed that the automatic reports of system failures on the plane strongly suggest it broke up in the air, perhaps due to fierce thunderstorms, turbulence, lightning or a catastrophic combination of events.

“These are telling us the story of the crash. They are not explaining what happened to cause the crash,” said Bill Voss, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va.

By FEDERICO ESCHER and GREG KELLER, Associated Press Writers

What You Dont Know About Gas Stations

1. “Good luck finding the best deal.”
When it comes to gas prices, most stations are branded—meaning the name of a major oil company hangs out front—and must buy gas from their proprietary company. They can’t shop around. With a lock on sales, the oil companies charge each station a different price depending on various factors, such as the station’s competition and its location. That means a station can pay as much as 46 cents a gallon more than one down the street, and that cost gets passed along to you.

Faced with such instability, Gainesville, Fla., resident Steven King plans ahead: “If I know I’m going out of town, I try not to buy gas so I can fill up after I leave.” King says he can save 10 cents a gallon by purchasing gas on the road. You’d be similarly wise to shop around—with prices constantly in motion, the cheapest gas may not be at the same station every time.

2. “I hate it when gas prices go up.”
Stations earn on average between 10 and 15 cents on a gallon of gas. Ironically, they earn the least when prices are highest. When fuel climbs, gas stations must shrink their profit margin to remain competitive, meaning they earn less per gallon than usual. But another big cost during tough times is something they can’t do anything about—credit card fees, which add up to about 2.5 percent of all purchases. When gas is at, say, $2 a gallon, the station pays credit card companies 5 cents a gallon; when gas hits $3, that fee becomes 7.5 cents—more than half the station’s entire average profit. “Those credit card fees are miserable for the gas station business,” says Mohsen Arabshahi, who owns five Southern California gas stations.

How do station owners make up for lost revenue? “Prices go up like a rocket and come down like a feather,” says Richard Gilbert, a professor of economics at UC Berkeley. For several weeks after wholesale prices drop, stations can earn as much as 20 cents a gallon before retail prices are lowered to reflect the change.

3. “My gas isn’t better for your car; it’s just more expensive.”
Oil companies spend lots of money explaining why their gas is better than the competition’s. Chevron’s gas, for example, is fortified with “Techron,” and Amoco Ultimate is supposed to save the planet along with your engine. But today more than ever, one gallon of gas is as good as the next.

True, additives help to clean your engine, but what the companies don’t tell you is that all gas has them. Since 1994 the government has required that detergents be added to all gasoline to help prevent fuel injectors from clogging. State and local regulators keep a close watch to make sure those standards are met; a 2005 study indicated that Florida inspectors checked 45,000 samples to ensure the state’s gas supply was up to snuff, and 99 percent of the time it was. “There’s little difference between brand-name gas and any other,” says AAA spokesperson Geoff Sundstrom.

What’s more, your local Chevron station may sell gas refined by Shell or Exxon Mobil. Suppliers share pipelines, so they all use the same fuel. And the difference between the most expensive brand-name gas and the lowliest gallon of no-brand fuel? Often just a quart of detergent added to an 8,000-gallon tanker truck.

4. “If you’re smart, you’ll put that debit card away . . .”
Your debit card might be a convenient way to pay for gas, but it’s a no-win proposition. When you swipe a debit card at the pump, the bank doesn’t know how much money you’ll be spending until you’ve finished pumping. So to make sure you have the funds to cover the purchase, some stations ask banks to automatically set aside some of your money: That amount can be $20 or more. That means even if you just topped off your tank for $10, you could be out $30, $50, even $100 until the station sends over its bulk transactions, which can take up to three days. If your funds are running low, you might end up bouncing a check in the meantime—even though you had the money in your account.

Unfortunately, paying inside with your debit card isn’t much of a solution either. Many banks charge their customers between 50 cents and $1 for the privilege of using their debit card in any PINbased transaction. The American Bankers Association estimates only 13 percent of consumers pay these fees, but critics say the practice is on the rise and consumers are often unaware of these charges.

5. “. . . and don’t even consider applying for our gas card.”
When it comes to gasoline credit cards, a little research goes a long way. The good deals are great, but the bad deals are really bad. Similar to store cards issued through retailers, gas cards are riddled with drawbacks, says Curtis Arnold, founder of CardRatings.com. APRs are high, starting above 20 percent; many don’t offer rebates on gas purchases; and they often lack standard protections such as fraud monitoring and zero liability for unauthorized transactions.

What about a Visa or MasterCard affiliated with a gasoline brand like Exxon or BP? They often offer lower interest rates and significant rebates, but limit your ability to shop around. In December 2005, a few months after gas hit $3 a gallon, Justin Andringa of Minneapolis considered a Shell MasterCard with a 15 percent rebate on gas purchases. But the rebate was temporary; he decided to stick with his Citi Dividend Platinum Select card, which gives him a 5 percent rebate on all gas purchases no matter where he buys it. “I’m a college student,” Andringa says. “I need to save money.” The deals on these cards are constantly changing. So visit CardRatings.com to find updated information.

6. “Looking for the cheapest gas in town? Try the Internet.”
You can’t actually buy gas online, but Web resources can help you find the cheapest fill-up in town. Among them, GasPriceWatch.com and GasWatch.info help people track pump prices. But the most comprehensive of the bunch is GasBuddy.com, which includes a network of 174 local sites, complete with maps and message boards that tally gas price by ZIP code. “People are frustrated by the variation in the price of gas,” says GasBuddy.com cofounder Jason Toews, and they’re using the Internet to take control.

It has worked wonders for Sue Foust. Every day, as she passes roughly 10 stations on her commute across Tucson, Ariz., Foust makes a mental note of their prices, then posts them on TucsonGasPrices.com, a local affiliate of GasBuddy.com. Then every four days or so, when she needs to fill up, she checks the prices others have posted in her area. It turned out the Shell station she used to frequent is one of the most expensive in the city. Now she fills up elsewhere. “I really do feel like I’m saving money,” she says.

7. “It’s a gallon when I say it’s a gallon.”
It’s hard to know if you’re getting all the gas you paid for at the pump. But in some places there’s a very good chance you’re not. The state or county weightsand- measures department usually checks pumps for accuracy, but in some areas it can be years between inspections. Arizona, for example, has only 18 staff members to check the state’s 2,300 stations.

That means stations there can expect a visit once every three to four years, according to Steve Meissner, an Arizona Department of Weights and Measures spokesperson. In 2005, 30 percent of the more than 2,000 complaints the department received were valid, and it levied $167,000 in fines. The good news is that it’s often easy to catch the most common problem: Older pumps in poor repair may begin charging you for gas before you’ve pumped it. Check the meter to make sure it registers $0.00 before you begin and doesn’t start charging you before the fuel is flowing.

8. “I might gouge you on a soda, but my coffee’s a real bargain.”
With margins on gas taking a hit—in 2006, fuel sales made up 71 percent of revenue but only 34 percent of gross margins—stations are increasingly looking to their convenience stores for income. Given that fact, you’d assume the average Kwik-E-Mart to be a terrible place to buy just about anything. But that’s only partially true.

Stock that usually sits on the shelf does tend to be vastly overpriced, so if you forgot ketchup on the way to a barbecue, you can bet you’ll pay a lot more for it at a gas station than you would at a supermarket, says David Bishop, director of convenience retailing for Willard Bishop Consulting. What about popular beverages? You’ll pay more for a 20-ounce soda at a gas station than you would for a two-liter bottle in a supermarket; water and energy drinks similarly tend to have high markups.

But there are bargains to be had: Some high-volume goods, such as cigarettes and beer, are often competitively priced at gas stations. And a cup of coffee goes for a fraction of what you’d pay at Starbucks.

9. “If you’re having car trouble, you’re in the wrong place.”
The days of the local gas station staffed with a skilled mechanic have all but come to an end. Station owners are swapping car lifts for beverage cases and car washes, anything that brings in a highvolume stream of income and traffic, says Dennis DeCota, executive director of the California Service Station and Automotive Repair Association. The more people who pull over for a soda, the greater the chance they’ll top off their tank and vice versa, the thinking goes. Few owners want the hassle of a business like car repair even if it earns the same amount of money as a convenience store.

In addition, repairing cars is increasingly expensive, and the ill will and potential liability from a fix-it job gone wrong are more of a headache than many owners are willing to risk. Today a service station can require $100,000 worth of diagnostic equipment—a significant investment. It’s a risky venture with little payoff, says Southern California station owner Arabshahi. In fact, Arabshahi removed the service station from one of his locations after he bought it. “I don’t have a service station because I am not a mechanic,” he says. “If he messes up a job, then it’s my name on there.”

10. “You don’t even need gas to run your car.”
Cars run on gasoline—but not all cars need gasoline to run. In fact, 6 million cars on the road today (mostly from U.S. manufacturers and built since 1998) are “flexible fuel” vehicles that can run on E85, a fuel that is 85 percent ethanol and only 15 percent gas. When Minneapolis resident John Schafer bought a car in late 2001, he chose a Chevy Tahoe because it’s a flexible-fuel car. Since then he’s filled up almost exclusively with E85. The big difference he’s noticed: Cars using E85 get about 15 percent fewer miles to the gallon. But it’s a drawback he’s willing to put up with. “I’m committed to the technology,” Schafer says. “With E85, it burns cleaner so it won’t pollute as much.”

While E85 generally costs less than regular gas, there is some concern that it may grow prohibitively expensive as demand outpaces supply: By 2006 ethanol was not just being used in E85—it also composed 15 percent of every gallon of gas sold. Supplies of ethanol are likely to grow thin, which could drive up the price of E85. And even die-hard Schafer says he won’t buy E85 if it starts to cost more than gasoline.

by Jim Rendon
Copyrighted, SmartMoney.com. All Rights Reserved.

Surprising Traits that Billionaires Share

Want to become a billionaire? Up your chances by dropping out of college, working at Goldman Sachs or joining Skull & Bones.

Are billionaires born or made? What are the common attributes among the uber-wealthy? Are there any true secrets of the self-made?

We get these questions a lot, and decided it was time to go beyond the broad answers of smarts, ambition and luck by sorting through our database of wealthy individuals in search of bona fide trends. We analyzed everything from the billionaires’ parents’ professions to where they went to school, their track records in the early stages of their careers and other experiences that may have put them on the path to extreme wealth.

Our admittedly unscientific study of the 657 self-made billionaires we counted in February for our list of the World’s Billionaires yielded some interesting results.

First, a significant percentage of billionaires had parents with a high aptitude for math. The ability to crunch numbers is crucial to becoming a billionaire, and mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of American billionaires (for whom we could find the information) were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.

Consistent with the rest of the population, more American billionaires were born in the fall than in any other season. However, relatively few billionaires were born in December, traditionally the month with the eighth highest birth rate. This anomaly holds true among billionaires in the U.S. and abroad.

More than 20% of the 292 of the self-made American billionaires on the most recent list of the World’s Billionaires have either never started or never completed college. This is especially true of those destined for careers as technology entrepreneurs: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, and Theodore Waitt.

Billionaires who derive their fortunes from finance make up one of the most highly educated sub-groups: More than 55% of them have graduate degrees. Nearly 90% of those with M.B.A.s obtained their master’s degree from one of three Ivy League schools: Harvard, Columbia or U. Penn’s Wharton School of Business.

Goldman Sachs has attracted a large share of hungry minds that went on to garner 10-figure fortunes. At least 11 current and recent billionaire financiers worked at Goldman early in their careers, including Edward Lampert, Daniel Och, Tom Steyer and Richard Perry.

Several billionaires suffered a bitter professional setback early in their careers that heightened their fear of failure. Pharmaceutical tycoon R.J. Kirk’s first venture was a flop–an experience he regrets but appreciates. “Failure early on is a necessary condition for success, though not a sufficient one,” he told Forbes in 2007.

According to a statement read by Phil Falcone during a congressional hearing in November, his botched buyout of a company in Newark in the early 1990s taught him “several valuable lessons that have had a profound impact upon my success as a hedge fund manager.”

Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Steven Schwarzman, and FedEx founder Frederick Smith.

Parents Had Math-Related Careers

The ability to crunch numbers is normally a key to becoming a billionaire. Often, mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of American billionaires for whom we could find that information were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.

September Birthdays

Of the 380 self-made American tycoons who have appeared on the Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires in the past three years, 42 were born in September–more than in any other month. Maybe that’s because September is the month the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans is published.

Tech Titans Who Dropped Out of College

Forget everything your guidance counselor told you: You don’t have to go to college to be successful. More than 20% of the self-made American moguls on the most recent list of the World’s Billionaires never finished college. Many of them made their fortunes in tech. Among them: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, (Oracle) and Theodore Waitt (Gateway).

Skull and Bones

Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Steven Schwarzman and FedEx founder Frederick Smith.

Goldman Sachs

A stint at investment bank Goldman Sachs is a prime credential for becoming a finance billionaire. Of the 68 self-made American billionaires that derive their fortunes from finance, at least eight cut their teeth in Goldman’s investment banking, trading, or asset management divisions. The company’s crown jewel: its “risk arbitrage” unit, which launched the careers of billionaires Edward Lampert and Daniel Och, as well as former billionaires Tom Steyer and Richard Perry.

by Duncan Greenberg Copyrighted, Forbes.com. All rights reserved.

It’s No Secret – The CIA is Recruiting New Agents

Being a spy may involve assumed identities and coded messages, but becoming a spy isn’t exactly top-secret business. These days, in fact, all you have to do if you’re interested in this particular career path is turn up your radio. The CIA is running ads on stations across the country for jobs in its clandestine service.

“Are you a person of curiosity and integrity?” asks one spot. “Are you ready for a world of challenge … a world of ambiguity and adventure?”

The agency won’t say how much it’s spending on the ad campaign, but CIA spokesman George Little told TIME via e-mail, “We continue to seek highly qualified candidates to support the mission of America’s premier intelligence agency.” (See the top 10 Secret Service code names.)

The campaign is the first by the agency under its new director, Leon Panetta, who has said he would like to recruit more people with foreign-language skills as well as more minorities.

The agency is not lacking for applicants; it gets more than 100,000 rÉsumÉs a year, and the number is growing fast. Little says if current trends hold, there may be a 40% to 50% increase in applications this year over 2008.

But the sheer volume of applications masks some of the agency’s recruiting problems. In a roundtable discussion with journalists last month, Panetta noted that less than 13% of his staff have foreign-language skills, and 22% are from minority communities. “I’d like to get to a point where every analyst and operations officer is trained in a foreign language,” he said. Panetta also said he’d like to increase the number of minorities at the agency to 30%, “so that we resemble America.” And he acknowledged the need for “better outreach for Muslims, Arabs, African Americans and Latinos.” (Read “Six Ways to Fix the CIA.”)

The outreach program is already underway. Earlier this month, the CIA’s third highest-ranking official, Scott White, held meetings with leaders of the Arab-American and Chaldean-American communities in Detroit. “In communities with large numbers of first- and second-generation Americans, we want the message conveyed loud and clear that we welcome their interest in employment with the agency, especially given their language skills and knowledge of other cultures,” says Little.

The agency is also looking to reduce its dependence on outside contractors, which increased dramatically after 9/11. “I think we have to bring those capabilities in-house,” Panetta said.

The CIA holds about 2,000 recruiting events a year, many of them at colleges and universities. It also advertises, selectively, on television, in print and even on airport billboards. The outreach extends to new media as well. For the past two years, the agency has used a Facebook page as a recruitment medium. Its TV ads can also be seen on YouTube.

CIA officials say all this effort is bearing fruit. “We are on track to meet the hiring goals set forth by former President Bush in 2004, which mandated that we increase by 50% the number of CIA officers in certain job occupations, such as intelligence analysts and clandestine officers,” says Little.

By Bobby Ghosh – Time.com

Sleepwalking Dog – Look at the Video