Air France A330 F-GZCP Flight AF447 GIG-CDG Crashed Into the Atlantic Ocean All 228 POB Killed

[flee 5]

Bodies found after so many months down there?

They can be quite well preserved because oxygen levels are low at those depths!

[Ja Singh 2]

They can be quite well preserved because oxygen levels are low at those depths!

 

Skeletal remains. Hence bodies

[Naim 6]

They can be quite well preserved because oxygen levels are low at those depths!

 

I think sea critters would have nibbled at the flesh.

[flee 5]

Yes, you guys are right - but we have been surprised before. So lets see what they can bring up to the surface.

[Denny Yen 0]

According to CBC, BEA was quoted as saying "identifiable bodies"

 

 

Specialists could start pulling up bodies and wreckage from an Air France plane found on the Atlantic Ocean floor within a month, after the stunning deep-water discovery raised new hope of determining the cause of the 2009 crash.

 

Investigators said Monday they still haven't found the plane's black box flight recorders, and it's unclear whether they remain attached to the fuselage, or whether they're even still intact after nearly two years in sandy depths of 3,900 metres.

 

All 228 people aboard the plane were killed when Flight 447, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, slammed into the ocean northeast of Brazil on June 1, 2009, after running into an intense high-altitude thunderstorm. The cause of the crash — the worst in Air France's history — remains unclear.

 

 

French officials said Monday that undersea robots have located bodies, motors and most of the Airbus jet in a fourth underwater search operation, after the last two search efforts turned up nothing. Investigators have said without the recorders, the cause of the crash may never be determined.

 

France's air accident investigation agency, the BEA, showed photos of the wreckage — intact wheels from the plane's landing gear, two engines dusted with silt, a panel of the fuselage with oval window openings.

 

The BEA did not show images of any bodies. French officials said identifiable bodies have been found and will be raised to the ocean surface, but would not say how many or comment further out of respect for the victims' families.

 

 

 

[\quote]

[Waiping 12]

Came across this while searching for Air Crash Investigation.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTL3WfpMOM0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDsy-TCLfwg

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otkPewDA-6E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ0ScIg04pw

Edited April 5, 2011 by Waiping

[flee 5]

Flightglobal's latest report features some photos: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/04/04/355094/pictures-first-images-of-air-france-a330-crash-site.html

[Alif A. F. 0]

Looks eerie, somehow reminds me of the infamous wrecked ship, Titanic.

[Robert 0]

The latest update:

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-27/air-france-crash-search-finds-black-box-recorder-without-data.html

[Denny Yen 0]

Found the chasis minus the memory module...

 

 

 

Air France Crash Search Finds Black-Box Recorder Without Data

 

Salvage teams work to retrieve debris from the wreckage of Air France flight 447 off the coast of Brazil in this handout photo taken on Monday, June 8, 2009. Source: Forca Aerea Brasileira via Bloomberg

 

Investigators scouring the undersea wreckage of the 2009 Air France plane crash said they located one of the aircraft’s black-box flight recorders without the memory module that stores its crucial information.

 

“The chassis of the airplane’s flight data recorder was found, though without the crash-survivable memory unit that contains the data,” France’s BEA air accident investigation bureau said in an e-mailed statement.

 

The search is continuing for the missing data module as well as the separate cockpit voice recorder and other wreckage that may be useful to the investigation, the BEA said.

 

The BEA has said the missing flight recorders remain critical to explaining the June 1, 2009, disaster in which an Airbus SAS A330 crashed into the mid-Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing all 228 passengers and crew.

 

After almost two years and four search operations, the agency said April 3 it had located the wreckage from Flight 447 on the ocean floor, at a depth of 3,900 meters (12,800 feet).

[Mohd Suhaimi Fariz 2]

Found the chasis minus the memory module...

 

So close...it must be heartbreaking for all involved. I hope they find the module soon to provide some closure to the families as well as answers to the investigators.

[Robert 0]

So close...it must be heartbreaking for all involved. I hope they find the module soon to provide some closure to the families as well as answers to the investigators.

 

Agree with you and I remember feeling the same about the Adam Air 574.

[Mohd Suhaimi Fariz 2]

The FDR module have been found! So now they're getting closer to find out what exactly went wrong with AF447.

 

Flight AF 447 on 1st June 2009 A330-203, registered F-GZCP 1st May 2011 briefing - BEA

[Johan Z 0]

Wow, those pictures are really amazing! Hopefully it will resolve this mystery :fingerscrossed:

[Robert 0]

Just woken up and saw this - great news!!

[Zi Hao Lim 0]

really eager to know what had happened to the plane.

[Waiping 12]

Hopefully the data is still there.

[Denny Yen 0]

Second AF447 flight recorder (CVR) found

 

A robot submarine has retrieved the second black box data recorder from an Air France plane that crashed mysteriously into the Atlantic in 2009 en route from Rio to Paris, killing all 228 people on board.

 

"The investigation team localized and identified the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) at 2150 UTC (GMT) on Monday, May 2, 2011," France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said in a statement.

 

The recorder which investigators hope will shed light on the flight's final moments, was "in good condition," BEA chief Jean-Paul Troadec told AFP, adding: "The chassis, the module and even the underwater locator beacon is there."

 

"It was raised and lifted on board the ship Ile de Sein" by a submersible robot early on Tuesday, the statement said.

 

The find by the robot submarine could be a breakthrough in the investigation into the disaster, as the boxes may hold crucial data that could enable BEA investigators to determine the cause of the crash.

 

The first black box was recovered on Sunday, after a search that has already taken 23 months and cost 35 million euros ($52 million).

 

"This second success ... confirms that the means mobilized were necessary to shed all light on this drama despite the complexity of this enquiry," said French secretary of state for transport Thierry Mariani.

 

Air France-KLM boss Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said the recovery of the data recorders "justifies the unprecedented means deployed by the government, Airbus and Air France."

 

Like the first black box, the second will be placed in a box full of water in order to keep it as much as possible in its current state.

 

It will then be taken to BEA laboratories at Bourget near Paris where the analysis will begin in around eight days.

 

"If we can read the two recorders, we'll manage to understand what happened," Toradec said. That will depend on how much of the data has been corroded.

 

If data is damaged, that will make its recovery more difficult and slow but not necessarily impossible.

 

The Airbus A330 plunged into the Atlantic while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009.

 

Investigators announced they had found the main wreckage in early April on the fourth and final attempt.

 

The official cause of the disaster remains uncertain, but the crash has been partly blamed on malfunctioning speed sensors used by Airbus.

 

Air France has been accused of not responding quickly enough to reports that they might be faulty.

 

The head of French pilot's union SNPL, Jean-Louis Barber, said that the main priority was to find out why the plane crashed.

 

Pilots "want these black boxes to be able to speak, for the bereaved families, for Air France and for the entire aeronautical community so that such a tragedy is not repeated," Barber said.

 

Investigators and Airbus remained cautious, stressing that without the black boxes the riddle of the plane's last moments might never be solved.

 

Air France and Airbus are being probed for alleged manslaughter in connection with the crash, the deadliest in the carrier's history.

 

Troadec said that black boxes were finally found within around 10 meters (yards) of each other on the seabed.

 

Other parts of the doomed plane's fuselage -- "all the pieces they would like to bring to the surface," Troadec said -- have now been identified and they will "very shortly" start being fished out.

 

"The operation will be very delicate," he said.

 

Only around 50 bodies were recovered from the ocean at the time of the crash, and French officials have said that many bodies are visible within the fuselage on the seabed.

 

"We're waiting to know when the first attempts to bring the bodies to the surface will take place," said Jean-Baptiste Audousset, who heads an association for relatives of the victims.

[Alif A. F. 0]

Usually, I don't read long articles word by word, sentence by sentence. I just skim through it for important points. But a New York Times online magazine article attracts my interest in reading it for almost an hour. It is so interesting to read that it is akin to watching an investigative documentary on the National Geographic Channel.

 

What Happened to Air France Flight 447?

 

By WIL S. HYLTON

Published: May 4, 2011

 

Late on the morning of April 3, the expedition ship Alucia rocked violently on the South Atlantic Ocean in the middle of a squall. On the aft deck, the crew huddled together in rain slickers and gazed across the heaving seas to a yellow blur on the horizon. This was an unmanned reconnaissance submarine carrying 15,000 photographs that they were nearly desperate to see. But it had buoyed to the surface just as the squall sprang up, and with 30-knot winds and four-foot swells that splashed over the stern, it was too dangerous to retrieve the sub. So they watched and waited.

Edited May 5, 2011 by Alif A. F.

[Li Ren 2]

Mystery jet crash data recovered, investigators say

Paris (CNN) -- Investigators trying to determine why an Air France plane crashed mysteriously two years ago have recovered the complete contents of the flight data recorder and the last two hours of cockpit conversation, they announced Monday.

 

It will take several weeks to analyze the data, French air accident experts said.

 

All 228 people aboard Air France 447 were killed when the Airbus A330 belly-flopped into the ocean June 1, 2009, in stormy weather. The cause of the crash is still not known.

 

Discovering that there was data on the recorders "is excellent news. It is really going to help us work out what happened on that plane," said Martine Del Bono, spokeswoman for France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA).

 

Q&A: Will the mystery of Flight 447 be solved?

 

The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were found at the beginning of May after an unprecedented series of submarine searches of a mountain range 3,900 meters (12,700 feet) under the ocean. They were brought to the surface and taken to Paris by ship and plane.

 

The investigators also recovered two bodies from the fuselage -- after finding only about 50 bodies in the days immediately after the crash.

 

They will not bring more bodies up from the ocean if they cannot identify the two they already have, they said Thursday.

 

Those two bodies are being examined to see if there is enough DNA to identify them, investigators said, adding that they hope to have results by Wednesday.

 

If they can identify the remains, they will consider bringing up other bodies from the wreckage.

 

The bulk of the plane was located earlier this year and contains many more human remains, according to investigators.

 

Recovering more bodies will be a difficult task, with miles of cable required to bring each one up over a period of three hours, they said.

 

Investigators also brought an engine and an avionics bay containing computers to the surface, they said.

 

The pilots of Air France 447 lost contact with air traffic controllers on June 1, 2009, while flying across an area of the Atlantic known for severe turbulence, officials said. But exactly what caused the plane to plunge into the ocean remains a mystery.

 

The plane slammed into the water while en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, falling so fast that air masks did not have time to deploy.

 

The fuselage was discovered in April with bodies still inside, investigators said.

 

Some relatives of those who died have expressed reservations about remains being brought to the surface.

 

Last month Robert Soulas, head of a support group for families of flight victims, said: "For me, personally I would like to leave the bodies of my children, my two children, on the seabed."

 

Other relatives have called for the bodies to be recovered.

 

Source

[Pieter C. 5]

France Recovers Air France Black Box Data

 

May 16, 2011

 

Crash investigators have successfully extracted data from the black boxes of an Air France jet which crashed in the Atlantic in 2009, France's BEA air investigation agency said on Monday.

 

The successful transfer includes all information from the flight data recorder, which monitors aircraft systems, and a loop containing the last two hours of cockpit voice recordings.

 

It increases the chances that the mystery surrounding the loss of the Airbus A330 aircraft with all 228 people on board on June 1, 2009, will finally be resolved.

 

The recorders from the Airbus A330 aircraft were hauled nearly 4 km (2.5 miles) to the sea surface at the start of May after a lengthy search operation costing USD$50 million and shipped subsequently to Paris, where they arrived on Thursday.

 

The data will now be analysed in detail, the BEA said.

 

"This work will take several weeks, after which a further interim report will be written and then published during the summer," it said in a statement.

 

Investigators had earlier said any information gleaned from the black boxes would take months to process and that they did not expect to issue a report until early in 2012.

 

(Reuters)

.

[Pieter C. 5]

No Urgent Safety Worries From Air France Black Box

 

May 17, 2011

 

Preliminary readings of black box data recovered from a French Airbus plane that crashed in the Atlantic have eased any immediate concerns over the safety of A330 aircraft, but investigators warned on Tuesday against rushing to blame crew for the 2009 disaster.

 

French investigators are poring over data and cockpit voice recordings from two black boxes hauled up from the seabed after a two-year wait, and are under pressure to solve the mysterious loss of an Air France jet that killed 228 people.

 

In the first tangible indication of where investigations may be leading, Airbus told airlines on Tuesday that it had no new safety recommendations as a result of officials' first glimpse of the black box data, sources familiar with the matter said.

 

Although not released to the public, such industry-wide messages are seen as significant because they can only be issued with the approval of official crash investigators.

 

Any obvious defect would automatically lead to some form of recommendation to avoid risking passenger safety on the rest of the 1,000 or so A330 aircraft in service across the world.

 

"At this stage of the preliminary analysis of the DFDR (digital flight data recorder), Airbus has no immediate recommendation to raise to operators," the European plane maker said in an industry bulletin obtained by reporters.

 

Airbus declined to comment.

 

France's BEA crash investigation authority warned earlier it was too early to jump to conclusions about what triggered the crash, but said it was confident that the cause of the disaster would ultimately be found.

 

Specifically, the investigation team has yet to synchronize readings from the data recorder with voice recordings taken from the cockpit, a crucial process expected to take several weeks.

 

It reacted angrily to a French report that pointed the finger directly at Air France or its crew, calling it "sensationalist" and premature.

 

Citing French government sources and people close to the investigation, Le Figaro reported that experts had singled out crew error but had not determined whether any mistake resulted from their decisions or Air France's own procedures.

 

The outcome of the investigation has potentially significant legal implications for both the plane manufacturer and airline.

 

Investigators have repeatedly warned against trying to read too much into individual scraps of information, including inconsistent readings from aircraft speed sensors which dominated an earlier part of the investigation.

 

(Reuters)

.

[Mike P 0]

Air Crash Investigation could take real long time and sometimes leads to no result or unsolved for centuries. It would be quite frustrating for the victims' family.

 

Even family of passengers from USA who travelling on SQ006 from TPE to LAX which crashed during take off in Year 2000 also making complains on SQ for delaying the announcement...

[Denny Yen 0]

Der Spiegel: pitot tube clogged by ice crystals, and the malfunctioning pitot caused the a/c to fly steeply up, which could have led to engine stall.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389754/Pilot-Air-France-flight-crashed-Atlantic-years-ago-NOT-cockpit-trouble-hit.html

 

Pilot of Air France flight that crashed into Atlantic two years ago was NOT in cockpit when trouble hit, recovered black box reveals

By ALLAN HALL

Last updated at 6:37 PM on 22nd May 2011

 

 

The pilot of the Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean nearly two years ago was not in the cockpit when the plane ran into trouble.

Leading German news magazine Der Spiegel quoted an expert who said captain Marc Dubois, 58, could be heard on the black box recordings rushing into the cockpit when the plane encountered bad weather.

 

 

'He gave both co-pilots instructions on how to save the plane' the expert, who was not named, told the magazine.

Air France 447 crashed into the Atlantic on June 1, 2009, four hours into a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 passengers and crew died.

 

The plane wreckage was found in April, about 1,000 kilometres off the north-east coast of Brazil.

 

Until now it had been thought that the crew of the Airbus A330 flew directly into a bad weather front as other planes flew around it.

 

But according to Der Spiegel, information from the flight data recorder - which was recently found with the other so-called black box, the cockpit voice recorder - amid the plane wreckage at the bottom of the ocean, proves otherwise.

 

The flight path showed clearly that the crew had tried to chart a smooth course through the storm clouds. 'It looked initially as if they had been successful, because there were no indications that they encountered increased turbulence,' according to the report.

 

What the data did show, however, was that ice crystals caused by the bad weather had clogged up the pitot tube, an instrument used to measure airspeed, the experts told Spiegel.

 

After the tube malfunctioned the plane lifted steeply, which could have caused the engine to stall and the plane to crash, they added. The investigation into the crash is being carried out by the French Transport Ministry’s Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis (BEA).

 

 

On Tuesday, French newspaper Le Figaro daily reported that the black box data had put Airbus in the clear by showing the plane had experienced no electronic or mechanical failure.

 

The BEA has said it will release details of the circumstances of the crash on May 27, but that the cause of the crash will take longer to establish.

 

[MERLINA 0]

Black Boxes Point to Pilot Error

 

The pilots of an Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean two years ago apparently became distracted with faulty airspeed indicators and failed to properly deal with other vital systems, including adjusting engine thrust, according to people familiar with preliminary findings from the plane's recorders. The final moments inside the cockpit of the twin-engine Airbus A330, these people said, indicate the pilots seemingly were confused by alarms they received from various automated flight-control systems as the plane passed through some turbulence typical on the route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. They also faced unexpectedly heavy icing at 35,000 feet. Such icing is renowned for making airspeed-indicators and other external sensors unreliable.