Painful blunder: AFP sends disaster message across the world

For about 5 minutes, the entire world was made to believe that the Atlantis Space Shuttle had exploded just after its launch from Cape Canaveral last Friday. Agence France Press sent out the following message:

Cape Canaveral (USA) – The American Space Shuttle Atlantis has exploded on Friday, shortly after its take-off with seven astronauts on board, according to images transmitted via the Nasa TV channel.

What happened? AFP has a rather sheepish explanation. “We had prepared the bulletin in case there was a problem, and it was sent out after a wrong manipulation. Since the accident with the Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986, an explosion 73 seconds into its flight, our editors always prepare a bulletin ‘just in case’”.

This makes you wonder which other bulletins are in the AFP pipeline “just in case”. Like these maybe:

Johnny Hallyday becomes Muslim, wants to move to Afghanistan
President Nicolas Sarkozy assassinated; Segolene Royal arrested
E-coli epidemic: all French cheese taken off the market

I’m sure you can come up with better ones.

Source (in French)