STS-117 - Incorrect Press Reports of Accident

Incorrect Press Reports of Accident

On 9 June 2007, the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported that Atlantis had exploded shortly after take-off. The information circulated on their wire for a number of minutes, and appeared on a number of websites including Libération and Romandie News. It was later reported that AFP had prepared this sort of bulletin for every shuttle launch since the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and accidentally published it. This is equivalent to accidental automated press releases in the past, such as the infamous case of NBC erroneously reporting Joe DiMaggio's death in 1999, about six weeks before his actual death.

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