WRECKAGE FROM AIR FRANCE FLIGHT 477, PLUNGED INTO OCEAN EN ROUTE RIO TO PARIS, FOUND
PARIS, French - Air France flight 447, an Airbus 330-203 plane, plunged into the ocean en route from Rio to Paris, killing all 228 passengers and crew on board and a long search has so far failed to find flight recorders that could give clues to the cause of the accident.Parts of the wreckage of an Air France plane found in the Atlantic at the weekend contain the bodies of some of the passengers who died when the aircraft crashed off Brazil in 2009, the French government said on Monday.
The latest search, the fourth since the crash, is being carried out using a salvage vessel equipped with unmanned submarines. An initial underwater search had also found parts of wreckage and bodies.- France's BEA accident investigation authority said on Sunday it had found a large part of the plane's wreckage including the engine and parts of the fuselage, and Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said on Monday there were human remains inside.
Transport Minister Thierry Mariani said victims' families would be informed of the findings at a meeting at the end of the week and no further details would be made public before then.- The French air accident investigation agency BEA said in a statement Sunday night that a team aboard the expedition ship Alucia “has located pieces of an aircraft ... in the last 24 hours.”
- BEA says its investigators identified the pieces as parts of Flight 447 and searchers are carrying out a fourth effort to find remains of the plane — and especially its flight recorders, in hopes of determining the cause of the crash.
- Finding the cause took on new importance last month when a French judge filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France and the plane's manufacturer, Airbus.
Air France and Airbus are financing the estimated US$12.5 million cost of the new search. About US$28 million has already been spent on the three previous searches for the jet's wreckage.The aircraft vanished after hitting stormy weather over the Atlantic a few hours into the flight. Speculation about what caused the accident has focused on the possible icing up of the aircraft's speed sensors, which seemed to give inconsistent readings before communication was lost.
AIR FRANCE JET MISSING OFF BRAZIL FOUND
UPDATED
It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected," a Paris airport official told AFP.
Air traffic control lost contact with the Airbus A330 at 0600 GMT shortly after it took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Charles de Gaulle airp
ort in Paris, where it had been due to land at 0910 GMT.
Airport authorities have set up a crisis cell at Charles de Gaulle. Some 215 people were on board.
By now, the flight recorders from Air France Flight 447 could be scattered nearly anywhere across a vast undersea mountain range that lies as much as four miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
Courtesy: Press TV
Air France has told families of passengers on Flight 447 that the jetliner broke apart and they must abandon hope that anyone survived, a grief counselor said Thursday as military aircraft tried to narrow their search for the remains of the plane.
Air France's CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told families in a private meeting that the plane broke apart either in the air or when it slammed into the ocean and there were no survivors, according to Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, who was asked by Paris prosecutors to help counsel relatives. The plane, carrying 228 people, disappeared after leaving Rio de Janeiro for Paris on Sunday nigh
t..
The Air France missing happened on Monday after dropping off radar."The plane disappeared from the screens several hours ago.
t..It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected," a Paris airport official told AFP.
Air traffic control lost contact with the Airbus A330 at 0600 GMT shortly after it took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Charles de Gaulle airp
ort in Paris, where it had been due to land at 0910 GMT.Airport authorities have set up a crisis cell at Charles de Gaulle. Some 215 people were on board.
By now, the flight recorders from Air France Flight 447 could be scattered nearly anywhere across a vast undersea mountain range that lies as much as four miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
Courtesy: Press TV
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