Air France jet may have ‘disintegrated in mid-air’
June 11th, 2009 - 5:55 pm ICT by ANILondon, June 11 (ANI): Two pieces of new evidence have suggested that the Air France jet broke up mid-air in minutes, rather than in one catastrophic incident.Searchers in the Atlantic fear ocean storms would have scattered the debris and bodies further apart
Firstly, bodies from Flight 447 had been picked up from locations more than 50 miles apart, the Brazilian Air Force revealed.
And secondly, a re-analysis of the plane’s last automatic transmissions indicated many parts had malfunctioned before it plunged into the Atlantic.
According to Sky News, Airbus told customers the investigation re-enforced the belief that the parts measuring air speed were the first to fail.
The plane’s three speed sensors, or Pitot tubes, are likely to have malfunctioned four hours into the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, according to pilot union officials who examined the data.
Meanwhile, two terror suspects who died alongside 226 other passengers on the stricken jet have been ruled out as a cause of the disaster.
Meanwhile, an urgent hunt for the flight’s black boxes has been boosted by the introduction of a French nuclear submarine. The Emeraude will trawl 13 square miles a day, using sonar to attempt to pick up the boxes’ acoustic beacons before they begin fading in three weeks’ time.
Brazilian searchers in charge of recovering floating bodies and debris say the surface search area has now widened into Senegalese waters.
Ocean currents have pushed the remnants far and wide since the jet went down on June 1 on route to Charles de Gaulle International airport.
The black boxes provide the best hope for unravelling the cause of the worst aviation accident since 2001. (ANI)
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Tags: AF447, air france, air speed, automatic transmissions, aviation accident, black boxes, brazilian air force, catastrophic incident, charles de gaulle international airport, emeraude, mid air, nuclear submarine, ocean currents, ocean storms, pitot tubes, rio de janeiro, search area, sky news, speed sensors, surface search, terror suspects