Air Crash Search: Tragedy and Confusion
- June 6th, 2009
- Posted by EUEditor
The Brazilian government and armed forces are reporting that seventeen bodies have been found with floating debris in the sea, from the crash of an Air France flight last week (1.6.09).
In the meantime French authorities are beginning the analysis of a spray of automatic messages from the doomed plane, reporting malfunctions.
They have warships in the area and are looking especially for recorders with information on flight speed data.
Some of the A330 series aircraft, like that which came down, have been having speed data instruments replaced, because of concerns about a possible fault affecting the stability of the aircraft.
The Air France aircraft with 228 people on board disappeared on a night flight from Rio de Janiero to Paris, (see EUAustralia “Flight AF447 …”, 3.6.09).
Official sources in Brazil declared a few days later that aircraft had found debris from the crash in the water, then disclosed (6.6.09) it had been “sea trash” from ships.
The finding of bodies at sea now looks more certain.