BEIJING – Like the best of showmen, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt left us wanting more.

Twenty meters from the finish line, his celebration began. He relaxed his arms, looked toward the crowd and slapped his chest. And despite those theatrics, he still covered 100 meters faster than any man ever has.

He did it in 9.69 seconds, and immediately one had to wonder how much faster he could go. Faster than a speeding bullet?

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NEW YORK —  Jennifer Love Hewitt is showing off her slimmed-down figure after losing 18 pounds in 10 weeks.

“I am in a pretty good workout regimen that I like, so it inspired me to keep it up,” the “Ghost Whisperer” actress, 29, tells Us Weekly. “The energy level and the way I feel now is great.”

In December of last year, an angry Hewitt defended her curves after photos of her in a bikini were ridiculed on the Internet.

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By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 15 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Attention, America: Paris has spoken. Paris Hilton, the blonde, doe-eyed celebrity thrust into the presidential campaign in an ad by Republican candidate John McCain, issued a tart rebuttal Tuesday, albeit in a scantily clad, tongue-in-cheek kind of way.

Last week, McCain launched an ad comparing Democratic rival Barack Obama to Hilton and Britney Spears, suggesting Obama was no more than a celebrity candidate unready to lead the nation.

Hilton initially shied away from the debate over the ad and its effectiveness. But she responded Tuesday with a spoof on the comedy Web site Funny or Die.

“Hey America, I’m Paris Hilton and I’m a celebrity, too. Only I’m not from the olden days and I’m not promising change like that other guy. I’m just hot,” Hilton said, speaking as she reclined in a pool chair in a revealing bathing suit and a pair of pumps. “But then that wrinkly, white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means I’m running for president. So thanks for the endorsement white-haired dude.”

“I want America to know that I’m, like, totally ready to lead,” she said.

She then discusses energy policy, and suggests a hybrid of McCain’s offshore oil drilling plan and Obama’s incentives for new energy technology.

“Energy crisis solved! I’ll see you at the debates,” she said,

McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said Hilton appears to support his candidate’s “all of the above” energy solution.

“Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan,” Bounds said.

Hilton’s mother, who with her husband donated $4,600 to McCain’s campaign earlier in the year, has said McCain’s ad is “a complete waste of the country’s time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs.”

McCain’s ad uses footage of Obama’s reception by Germans during a recent trip to Berlin to dismiss him as just another celebrity. Obama’s campaign has criticized the ad; McCain has defended it as humorous.

Hilton’s rebuttal includes plenty of humor at McCain’s expense.

An announcer calls him “the oldest celebrity in the world, like super-old, old enough to remember when dancing was a sin and beer was served in a bucket,” and asks, “but is he ready to lead?” Hilton’s spoof also intersperses images of McCain and Yoda from Star Wars and the cast of television’s “The Golden Girls.”

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 It’s been nearly seven years, but folks in Oxford, Conn., still remember the workers in hazmat suits, scouring the pews of Immanuel Lutheran Church for unseen spores of anthrax.

They remember lining up to be tested for the toxin, and being afraid to open their mail. They remember 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren — a church-going widow, long-retired legal secretary and a bioterrorist’s most unlikely victim.

“Something like that you never really get over,” Thomas Condon, a friend of Lundgren’s, said Friday. “It always stays in your memory.”

For the rest of us, the years between then and now have made it easy to forget the dread and terror that seized the nation during the anthrax-by-mail attacks, and to lose track of the frustrated investigation that long failed to solve them.

On Friday, all those memories came flooding back.

After years of futility, investigators said they had been preparing to charge a government scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, with hatching the plot, before he committed suicide this week. The final answers may well have died with him.

When the anthrax attacks began, smoke was still rising from the charred pit of the World Trade Center. U.S. jet fighters moved into position, ready to unleash their bombs on Afghanistan’s defiant regime.

Any moment now, Americans told each other, the terrorists might well act again. Nobody could say where or when or, most ominously, how.

Still, when a Florida photographer, Bob Stevens, died of inhaled anthrax on Oct. 5, 2001, it captured relatively little notice and stirred more sorrow than fear. Then one of Stevens’ co-workers was diagnosed. And another.

Days later, an assistant at the New York offices of NBC News was diagnosed. Investigators traced it to the powder contained in a mysterious letter. It was postmarked Sept. 18 and, in what would become a familiar detail, dispatched from a mailbox in the tidy downtown of Princeton, N.J.

Soon after, a similar letter, also pre-stamped and without any return address, arrived at the Capitol Hill offices of the Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Inside, a worker found the same powder and a chilling message.

“You’re going to die,” it read.

Even before the first report of anthrax, post-9/11 worries had sent a book on germ warfare up to the No. 2 spot on Amazon.com’s list of best-sellers. Now the hypothetical bioterror threat was becoming real.

“I could probably drop a package of Sweet n’ Low and evacuate this building,” a Florida county official, Ken Pineau, said at the time.

At some Army-Navy stores, clerks imposed limits on how many gas masks a single customer could buy. At pharmacies, sales of ciprofloxacin — the antibiotic used to combat anthrax — multiplied by 10.

“In Cipro we trust,” a solemn Tom Brokaw told his “NBC Nightly News” audience.

By November 2001, five people were dead — Ottilie Lundgren the last among them — and 17 others were sickened. Workers in bubble suits decontaminated federal office buildings in Washington after anthrax letters were discovered there. The attacks shut some postal substations for years.

Who would do this?

The letter to Daschle hailed Allah, and speculation focused on Arab terrorists. The first victim, it was noted, lived in Lantana, Fla. near an airfield where 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta rented planes. Perhaps that was the key.

But there was no evidence to back that up, and hoaxes did not clarify the situation. Letters containing white powder were sent to scores of Planned Parenthood clinics, fueling conjecture that the plot was the work of far-right zealots.

But investigators who analyzed the anthrax dismissed both ideas. The toxin was a sophisticated form, carefully manufactured by someone who was highly skilled.

By the early months of 2002, investigators were zeroing in on 20 to 30 scientists they said had both the knowledge and opportunity to send the anthrax letters.

The only name that surfaced: Steven J. Hatfill, a biowarfare expert who had worked at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. Federal officials repeatedly identified him as a “person of interest.”

By August of that year, it was clear Hatfill was the prime suspect. FBI agents wearing protective gloves searched his apartment and a storage locker. They found no trace of anthrax.

“I want to look my fellow Americans directly in the eye and declare to them, ‘I am not the anthrax killer,” Hatfill said. “I know nothing about the anthrax attacks. I had absolutely nothing to do with this horrible crime.”

But the investigation continued to focus on him.

In June 2003, investigators drained 1.45 million gallons of water from a pond eight miles from Fort Detrick. The drastic step came after divers found a plastic box with two holes cut into it that some investigators theorized could have been used to safely fill envelopes with deadly anthrax spores.

The pond produced a gun, a bicycle and fishing lures — but no further evidence.

Later that summer, Hatfill sued the Attorney General John Ashcroft and other federal officials, accusing them of turning him into a scapegoat.

The investigation ebbed and flowed, with little outward sign of progress. In 2006, the FBI changed the leadership of the team investigating the attacks.

It’s not clear when their attention turned to Ivins.

The microbiologist had briefly been the subject of some controversy in late 2001, when Army internal reports showed he decontaminated an area of Fort Detrick lab’s for anthrax without reporting it to his superiors.

Ivins apologized and was not disciplined. In fact, he was praised.

In 2003, he shared the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honor given to civilians Defense Department employees, for his work on a vaccine for anthrax.

Years later, investigators turned their attention from Hatfill to him. They interviewed the latter man’s family and colleagues, developing a picture of a man both brilliant and emotionally unstable.

Maryland court documents show he recently received psychiatric treatment and was ordered to stay away from a woman he was accused of stalking and threatening to kill.

Friends said he knew the FBI was on his tail and that he felt hounded. Investigators raided his home twice. Agents in cars with tinted windows conducted regular surveillance.

In late June, the Justice Department settled its suit with Hatfill, agreeing to pay him $5.8 million — and, at least in the public perception, exoneration.

About two weeks later, police were called to Fort Detrick to speak with Ivins. He was taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation because of concern he was a danger to himself or others. He was eventually released.

This past Tuesday, he committed suicide at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. His lawyer blamed the death on the government’s “relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo.”

The scientist’s death brought back memories of the terror visited by the anthrax attacks, but leaves many questions unanswered.

“I think the FBI owes us a complete accounting of their investigation and ought to be able to tell us at some point, how we’re going to bring this to closure,” Daschle told The Associated Press.

“It’s been seven years, there’s a lot of unanswered questions,” he said, “and I think the American people deserve to know more than they do today.”

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MINNEAPOLIS - It was another perfect summer day — so similar to and yet so different from that day a year ago when the Minneapolis freeway bridge fell.

On Aug. 1, 2007, there was crashing and panic and disbelief and horror. On Friday, there were songs and doves and tears and hugs. And then silence, to remember the moment a year ago when the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River during the evening rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring more than 140.

Minnesotans came together for two memorial ceremonies in Minneapolis to mark the anniversary. Hundreds gathered in Gold Medal Park and marched to the whine of bagpipes to the Stone Arch Bridge, just up the Mississippi from the bridge that fell. A new bridge, still under construction, already stands in its place. The red fire truck from Fire Station 11 — the first rescuer on the collapse scene — led the procession.

Shortly before 6:05 p.m., the time of the collapse, Minneapolis Police Inspector Mike Martin read the names of those who died: Julia Blackhawk. Richard Chit. Paul Eickstadt. Sherry Engebretsen. Peter Hausmann. Patrick Holmes. Greg Jolstad. Vera Peck. Christine Sacorafas. Hana Sahal. Sadiya Sahal. Scott Sathers. Artemio Trinidad-Mena.

Their relatives watched from a riverboat below, hugging and grieving. The Minneapolis Queen sounded its horn for each name. And then the crowd fell silent to honor them. Construction workers on the new bridge unfurled a large American flag, which fluttered in a stiff breeze.

The crowd included bridge victims, police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, bus drivers, construction workers, top state officials and those who just wanted to remember. Members of the Coulter family, who survived the collapse, rode an ambulance onto the Stone Arch Bridge and looked at the place where they could have died.

“Not a day goes by when we don’t think about it,” said Paula Coulter, who is recovering from a brain injury.

Her daughters cried as they looked at the scene, while her husband, Brad, said he was thinking of those who died.

Amy Lindholm took in the scene for the first time since the collapse, still wearing a plastic brace around her torso and holding her young daughter’s hand. Lindholm, 33, said she wouldn’t have missed the event, even though she has never liked being up on bridges.

“Every day is a recovery,” she said. “It’s just hard to believe it’s been a year.”

Work halted on the new bridge for six hours to observe the anniversary.

Earlier in the day, an interfaith service at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis drew 1,000 people, from bridge collapse victims to top state officials. Methodist Bishop Sally Dyck said the tragedy touched people around the world, raising basic questions about bridges and their safety.

“We all cross bridges, and I’m not talking about metaphors,” she said.

The evening ceremony upriver from the collapsed bridge drew many who just wanted to remember, even though they didn’t know anyone on the bridge when it fell.

“I wasn’t personally affected by it, but it’s kind of wounded my city, and it’s a way to remember and think about what happened in the past year,” said Christine Isenberg, 27, who leaned on the railing and looked at the new bridge.

She added: “There used to be a bridge, then there wasn’t a bridge, now there’s this bandage over where it used to be.”

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OKYO - Toyota has developed a motorized stand-up-and-ride Segway lookalike designed to help people scoot around at malls and airports.

But the “Winglet,” shown Friday in Tokyo, takes some getting used to. A demonstrator was visibly worried about its safety while accompanying a reporter who cautiously tried it on a short course in a Toyota showroom.

Toyota officials insist anyone can learn to ride it with some practice, including the elderly — its major target buyer.

Still, Toyota Motor Corp. has no plans yet to turn the Winglet into a commercial product. The Japanese automaker will start testing the two-wheeler this year at an airport and resort complex and next year at a shopping mall, all in Japan, to get user feedback. Overseas test plans are undecided.

The Winglet goes up to 3.7 mph, about the same speed as pedestrians, far slower than 12.5-mph Segway, which costs $5,000. The Winglet can go about 3 miles before needing to be recharged.

It is designed to stop easily with little pressure, pivot full-circle and go smoothly over bumps on roads. And it is designed to respond almost intuitively — moving forward when you lean to the front, and turning when you sway to the right or left, similar to skiing. One of three models shown comes with a protruding handle that can be grabbed and used like a steering wheel.

Toyota executive Takeshi Uchiyamada, who zipped around on a Winglet as though he was on a skateboard, said the company is experimenting with new ways of mobility as part of a company strategy to spread robotics.

“We hope to create friendly robots that can exist side by side with people,” Uchiyamada said. “Winglet will help everyone move around safely and stay active.”

Winglet evolved out of Toyota’s takeover of parts of Sony Corp.’s robotics division last year. Sony, reshaping itself under Chief Executive Howard Stringer, decided to focus on electronics and wipe out its Aibo pet robot and other peripheral businesses.

Toyota envisions a future in which Winglet will be packed with wireless technology so it relays shopping information at stores. Or it may move on its own, Uchiyamada said. So it might go recharge its batteries itself, or come pick you up when you beckon it, toting your luggage.

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NEW YORK - Exclusive photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s newborn twins fetched $14 million, a person involved in the negotiations told The Associated Press, giving People magazine and a British tabloid joint rights to publish the most expensive celebrity pictures ever sold.

The person asked not to be named because he was not authorized to release the figure. People will feature twin babies Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon in an issue to hit newsstands Monday, spokeswoman Nancy Valentino said Friday.

The money — more than double the $6 million People paid for Jennifer Lopez’ twins on a March cover, according to Forbes — will go to a foundation created by Pitt and Jolie that largely focuses on helping children around the world.

It’s the second time the celebrity weekly won the North American rights to the couple’s first-look baby pictures, and the third time they’ve worked with the two magazines in exchange for a hefty donation to charity.

“We’re thrilled to be able to feature these pictures in People,” managing editor Larry Hackett said in a statement.

People will split the bill with London-based Hello! magazine, which has worldwide rights; particulars of the division were not disclosed. People.com will unveil the first photo online Sunday evening.

Even before the babies were born July 12 in Nice, France, the speculation began over which celeb mag would come out on top of an inevitable bidding war. The couple ultimately chose to go a familiar route with its joint deal between People and Hello!, with Getty Images as the photographer and go-between.

People ponied up a reported $4 million donation for the U.S. rights to the first shots of their daughter Shiloh, now 2 years old, while Hello! obtained the British rights. And last year, the couple sold intimate shots of their son Pax, then 3 years old, to Hello! and People.

Getty Images, which was involved in the Shiloh deal, also took part this time around. In a statement, Getty co-founder and CEO Jonathan Klein said his company was “delighted that all proceeds from these stunning images will once again be donated entirely to charity.”

When People the published six photos of Pitt, Jolie and baby Shiloh in June 2006, the issue moved 2.2 million copies, its biggest seller at the time going back to its 4 million-selling 9/11 special, Media Week reported at the time.

Jolie, 33, and Pitt, 44, established their foundation that year. They donated $1 million in June to The Education Partnership for Children of Conflict to help children affected by the war in Iraq. Last year, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation gave more than $300,000 to support the International Rescue Committee’s relief program for Darfur refugees.

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WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks were planning to indict and seek the death penalty against a top Army microbiologist in connection with anthrax mailings that killed five people. The scientist, who was developing a vaccine against the deadly toxin, committed suicide this week.

The scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, worked for the past 18 years at the government’s biodefense labs at Fort Detrick, Md. For more than a decade, he worked to develop an anthrax vaccine that was effective even in cases where different strains of anthrax were mixed, which made vaccines ineffective, according to federal documents reviewed by the AP.

U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of ongoing grand jury proceedings, said prosecutors were closing in on Ivins, 62. They were planning an indictment that would have sought the death penalty for the attacks, which killed five people, crippled the postal system and traumatized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks.

Authorities were investigating whether Ivins released the anthrax as a way to test his vaccine, officials said. The Justice Department has not yet decided whether to close the investigation, officials said, meaning it’s still not certain whether Ivins acted alone or had help. One official close to the case said that decision was expected within days.

If the case is closed soon, one official said, that will indicate that Ivins was the lone suspect.

Ivins was “hounded” by aggressive FBI agents who raided his home twice, said Dr. W. Russell Byrne, a colleague who worked in the bacteriology division of the Fort Detrick research facility for 15 years. Byrne said Ivins was forcefully removed from his job by local police recently because of fears that he had become a danger to himself or others. The investigation led to Ivins being hospitalized for depression earlier this month, Byrne said.

He said he does not believe Ivins was behind the anthrax attacks.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. Tom Ivins, a brother of the scientist, told The Associated Press that his other brother, Charles, had told him that Bruce committed suicide and Tylenol might have been involved. The Los Angeles Times, which first reported that Ivins was under suspicion, said the scientist had taken a massive dose of a prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine.

White House press secretary Dana Perino declined to comment on the case, except to say that President Bush has maintained an interest in it over the years and was aware there were “about to be developments.” She would not say how much he knew about the Ivins case.

The Fort Detrick laboratory and its specialized scientists for years have been at the center of the FBI’s investigation of the anthrax mailings. In late June, the government exonerated a colleague of Ivins’, Steven Hatfill. Hatfill’s name has for years had been associated with the attacks after investigators named him a “person of interest” in 2002.

Unusual behavior by Ivins was noted at Fort Detrick in the six months following the anthrax mailings, when he conducted unauthorized testing for anthrax spores outside containment areas at the infectious disease research unit where he worked, according to an internal report. But the focus long stayed on Hatfill.

Ivins was the co-author of numerous anthrax studies, including one on a treatment for inhalation anthrax published in the July 7 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Henry S. Heine, a scientist who had worked with Ivins on inhalation anthrax research at Fort Detrick, said he and others on their team have testified before a federal grand jury in Washington that has been investigating the anthrax mailings for more than a year. He declined to comment on Ivins’ death.

FBI vehicles with tinted windows had watched Ivins’ home for a year, neighbor Natalie Duggan, 16, said.

“They said, ‘We’re on official business,’ ” she said.

Tom Ivins said Friday that federal officials working on the anthrax case questioned him about his brother a year and a half ago. “They said they were investigating him,” he said from Ohio, where he lives, in a CNN interview.

Ivins played keyboard and helped clean up after masses at St. John the Evangalist Roman Catholic Church in Frederick, where a dozen parishoners gathered after morning Mass to pray for him Friday.

The Rev. Richard Murphy called Ivins “a quiet man. He was always very helpful and pleasant.”

The government paid Hatfill $5.82 million to settle a lawsuit contending he was falsely accused and had been made a scapegoat for the crimes.

“We are not at this time making any official statements or comments regarding this situation,” said Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office, which is investigating the anthrax attacks, said Friday.

Five people died and 17 were sickened by anthrax powder in letters that were mailed to lawmakers’ Capitol Hill offices, TV networks in New York, and tabloid newspaper offices in Florida. Two postal workers in a Washington mail facility, a New York hospital worker, a Florida photo editor and an elderly Connecticut woman were killed.

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 NEW YORK - Four swimmers drowned and three were missing Saturday in two days of treacherous ocean currents at Long Island and New York City beaches, authorities said. At least three more had been rescued.

The missing included a 10-year-old girl who had been playing in the waters off Coney Island. A 10-year-old boy who was with her was rescued, police said.

Some authorities said the spate of swimmers being swept away seemed unprecedented. In the Long Island community of Long Beach, where two people drowned and another disappeared, Police Lt. Bruce Meyer said he “cannot recall there ever being back-to-back situations like this.”

The rough seas were due to a strong storm system that brought 8-foot waves to the area earlier this week, National Weather Service meteorologist Jim Connolly said.

The risk of rip currents during the weekend was “moderate,” meaning stronger and more frequent instances could be expected and “only experienced surf swimmers should enter the waters,” Connolly said.

On Friday, the rip current risk was “moderate to strong.”

In Long Beach, a swimmer or surfer died Saturday after he was spotted struggling about 150 yards from shore, Meyer said. Another man drowned at the same beach Friday while playing football in about 3 to 5 feet of water after lifeguard hours. A teenager playing with him was missing.

Also on Long Island, 42-year-old man died Saturday afternoon after swimming at a beach near the ocean in East Quogue, said Southampton Town police.

A fourth swimmer drowned Friday afternoon at Sandy Bar Beach on Long Island’s East End.

Also missing was a 23-year-old man swept away off Jacob Riis Beach in Queens on Friday. Authorities called off the search after looking for him for 23 hours, the Coast Guard said.

A friend who had tried to save him was rescued by firefighters.

Authorities also rescued a man swimming off Coney Island.

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 MANILA, Philippines - Australian investigators were focusing on the possibility that an oxygen cylinder could have exploded mid-flight on the Qantas jumbo jet that made an emergency landing in the Philippines with a giant hole in its fuselage, officials said Sunday.

Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority said Qantas has been ordered to urgently inspect every oxygen bottle aboard its fleet of 30 Boeing 747s.

“At this stage, there is no evidence whatsoever that this is a security-related event,” Neville Blyth, senior investigator from the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau, told a news conference. “This is being treated as a safety investigation.”

Blyth said tests for bomb residue were negative. Philippine bomb-sniffing dogs had gone through the cargo hold and found no indication of explosives.

He said the focus is now on an oxygen bottle missing from the cargo hold that was left exposed when a section of the 747-400’s metal skin ripped away at 29,000 feet over the South China Sea on Friday.

Australian aviation safety authority official Peter Gibson said an inspection of all Qantas oxygen bottles on its fleet will take several days.

Passengers described the plane being shaken by a loud bang. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling as the plane descended rapidly due to the rapid decompression, and debris flew through the cabin from a 9-foot hole in the fuselage. The plane, en route from London to Melbourne, Australia, had made a stopover in Hong Kong an hour earlier.

Four Australian Transport Safety Bureau specialists began inspecting the aircraft Saturday and were expected to continue their work for two or three days with assistance from Boeing and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Blyth said.

The possibility of an explosion is one of several scenarios being considered by investigators, said Julian Walsh of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

“There are oxygen cylinders contained in the cargo compartment,” he told reporters. “The relevance of that will certainly be covered in the investigation.”

An official of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration said initial reports indicated no link to terrorism.

A team of Philippine National Police bomb experts were also on hand to provide help in the investigation if needed, Ciron said.

“It’s standard operating procedure to find out if there was an explosion or not. It looks like there was none, but we’re going to confirm that later on,” Ciron told The Associated Press.

Some passengers told Australian media that their oxygen masks failed to work properly during the crisis, leading some to nearly pass out.

Other passengers, while applauding the pilot and crew’s performance, told of having to share oxygen masks between three people because of faulty or broken emergency equipment.

“Ours didn’t come down, and my husband just about (passed out) because he didn’t have any oxygen for about three minutes,” Beverley Doors told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

Passenger David Saunders said that one man in front of him smashed the ceiling panel in order to force his mask to come down and that children were screaming and flailing.

“Their cheeks and lips were turning blue from lack of oxygen,” he said.

Boeing spokeswoman Liz Verdier said the design of the Qantas jet includes dozens of oxygen tanks located throughout the lower part of the aircraft, including below the passenger compartment where the hole is.

Qantas Chief Executive Officer Geoff Dixon told reporters Saturday he was “horrified” after seeing pictures of the gaping hole. He said it was too early to speculate on the caused.

“There are thousands of aircraft flying around the world today. Things happen. Something has happened here and we cannot speculate any more about what did happen,” Dixon said.

Peter Gibson, spokesman for Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority, said speculation that rust contributed to the accident could be discounted.

“It’s clearly an extremely rare and unusual event that a hole opens up in the fuselage,” he told reporters in Australia. “I know there’s a number of theories around, but they’re just that at this stage, they’re just theories. We don’t have the solid facts.”

Qantas boasts a strong safety record and has never lost a jet to an accident. The last crash of a smaller airline plane was in 1951.

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