Le Bourget, France - Air France Flight 447 plunged vertically into the Atlantic Ocean intact at a very high speed, a top French investigator has said, but problems with the plane's speed sensors were not the direct cause of the crash.
Alain Bouillard, who is leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident agency BEA, says the sensors, called Pitot tubes, were "a factor, but not the only one".
"It is an element, but not the cause," he said.
"We are very far from establishing the causes of the accident."
Investigators had found no "traces of fire (or) explosives".
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The Airbus A330-200, flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, went down with 228 people on board in a remote area of the Atlantic, 1 500km from Brazil's coast and far from radar coverage. The BEA released its preliminary findings on Thursday in what it said was one of history's most difficult plane crash probes.
One of the automatic messages emitted by the plane indicated it was receiving incorrect speed information from the external monitoring instruments, which could have destabilised the aircraft's control systems. Experts have suggested those external instruments might have iced over.
Bouillard said the plane "was not destroyed in flight".
"The plane seems to have hit the surface of the water on its flight trajectory, with a strong vertical acceleration."
Bouillard said life jackets found among the wreckage were not inflated, suggesting the passengers were not prepared for a crash landing. - Sapa-AP
- This article was originally published on page 6 of Cape Times on July 03, 2009
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