Naming the victims
June 9, 2009
It's been a slow and difficult search in the Atlantic Ocean, but rescue teams are still finding bits of wreckage from the stricken AF 447 plane that crashed June 1 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
Brazilian military officials say they have recovered at least 24 bodies, people's personal belongings, as well as various parts of the Airbus 330 jetliner.
Divers have also recovered a large section of the plane's tail fin, which was painted with Air France colors.
The remains were found over 400 kilometers north-east of Brazil's small, unpopulated island group, the St Peter and St Paul Rocks. The Atlantic Ocean is roughly 3,500 meters deep at that location.
The bodies are being transported, via a nearby archipelago, to the Brazilian coastal city of Recife. A temporary mortuary there will carry out tests to try to identify the bodies, using DNA samples from relatives and dental samples. A total of 228 passengers and crew members were on board the AF 447 when it went down.
The crash was the worst aviation accident since 2001, and also unprecedented in Air France's 75-year history.
Search for black boxes ongoing
The two black boxes -- which could hold crucial clues as to the cause of the crash -- have not yet been found, although the US is sending two listening devices to assist in the continuing search.
The black boxes are capable of transmitting signals underwater for around 30 days, after this period they will be almost impossible to locate.
If the signals are detected within the next three weeks, then the French Nautille research sub -- which also explored the wreck of the Titanic -- will be deployed to recover them.
The data the black boxes contain might be able to confirm or deny early suspicions on what caused the plane to fall from the sky while out of range of radar. Currently, theories concentrate on the airspeed sensors, known as pitots, on board the Airbus 330.
If these pitot probes had iced over, the Air France pilots may have entered the electrical storm in which they crashed with faulty information about their airspeed, which could have caused the accident.
France's Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau told French radio that such a situation could have resulted in "two bad consequences for the survival of the plane".
"Too low a speed, which can cause it to stall, or too high a speed, which can lead to the plane ripping up as it approached the speed of sound, as the outer skin is not designed to resist such speed," he said.
Air France had already complained of these pitots icing over in the past, and has announced that it is speeding up the replacement of these sensors on all A330 and A340 jets.
One French union of pilots, Alter, has called on all its members to boycott any flights on these Airbus jets, unless they have been fitted with replacement pitot probes.
msh, dpa/AP/AFP
Editor: Sonia Phalnikar