Air France Flight May Join Aviation Mysteries

Crash likely to remain a puzzle as ocean currents shift debris over a vast area

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 6, 2009 1:00 AM CDT

(Newser) – As shifting ocean currents spread debris from Air France Flight 447 over a wider area, the chances rise that it will become one of aviation's unsolved mysteries. CNN rounds up some other biggies:

Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific in 1937 while on a round-the-world flight.
Numerous aircraft have crashed mysteriously in the "Bermuda Triangle," including a team of five Navy bombers that disappeared in 1949 after getting disoriented.

Golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet lost cabin pressure and crashed in 1999, and investigators have never figured out why.
132 people died when US Air Flight 427 crashed in Pennsylvania in 1994, and investigators don't know why its rudder failed.
Steve Fossett's crash in Nevada in 2007: Investigators found no problems with the plane, and the experienced aviator was flying through clear skies in an area he knew well.

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Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, is shown in this undated file photo. (AP Photo)

A French Marine aircraft is seen on a military base after search operations for Air France Flight 447 in Natal, Brazil,yesterday. (AP Photo/Ricardo Moraes)

Pilot Steve Fossett walks across a windy runway to the GlobalFlyer at the Salina Municipal Airport in Salina, Kan. in this 2005 file photo. Fossett died in a 2007 crash. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

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An unsolved crash has the effect of creating an erroneous perception that flying is unsafe, even though it is a remarkably safe form of travel. - David M. Primo, co-author of The Plane Truth: Airline Crashes, The Media and Transportation Policy

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Air France Flight May Join Aviation Mysteries