Hunt for missing Air France passenger continues
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Investigators are searching for a passenger who never showed for an Air France flight December 24.
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U.S. officials say some people they wanted to question never showed up for cancelled Air France flights.
CNN's David Ensor on intelligence 'chatter' that mentioned one of the flight numbers.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Investigators searching for one man who failed to appear for a Christmas Eve Air France flight to Los Angeles, California, still have not found him.
Government sources told CNN Tuesday that the missing man could be a trained pilot with ties to al Qaeda.
Six Air France flights were canceled altogether over the Christmas holiday and several ticketed passengers were detained for questioning and then released by French police.
The French Interior Ministry Police has said the names provided by the FBI to the French airline contained misspellings and didn't include birth dates. Those detained at the airport were not the same as those on the watch list. (Full story)
CNN previously reported that a trained pilot was scheduled to be a passenger on the Christmas Eve flight but did not show up. Flight 68 was canceled after the United States received intelligence indicating it could be the target of a terrorist attack.
Officials want to know if the missing passenger is the same person whose name is on a U.S. terrorist watch list.
One U.S. official would not describe the man's possible ties to terrorism but described him as one of many "potential known terrorists."
In raising the nation's terror alert level to Code Orange, the second-highest level on the five-tiered system, the Department of Homeland Security on December 21 said al Qaeda may use international flights to launch attacks on the United States. It was the first time since May that the level had been raised.
U.S. counterterrorism officials have said al Qaeda wants to launch an attack more spectacular than the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.
More than a dozen international flights have been canceled or delayed for security reasons since December 24, primarily flights involving British Airways and Air France.
The British Airways incidents began December 31, when Flight 223 was escorted by fighter jets to Dulles Airport outside Washington after authorities said the names of about a dozen passengers appeared to match those on a terrorist watch list.
The Boeing 747 was already in flight from Heathrow Airport in London when authorities noticed the similarity in the names, prompting the emergency response.
British Airways said it canceled its flight January 1 at the request of the British government. A second flight was canceled January 2.
CNN Justice correspondent Kelli Arena and producer Kevin Bohn.
