Air France Jet Was Moving Too Slowly

Submarine sent to probe ocean floor

(NEWSER) - Rescuers are hot on the track of signals picked up deep in the Atlantic that could be from one of Air France Flight 447's black boxes, Le Monde reported today, but a French official denied that the signals could be originating from the doomed plane's flight recorder. “The black boxes have not been detected,” the official tells the AP. While Le Monde says a submarine was sent to investigate, a source tells Reuters it wasn’t “the first time sounds had been heard.” More»

Pilot on separate flight may have seen fire in ocean

(NEWSER) - As French and Brazilian military aircraft continue to search the Atlantic Ocean for signs of lost Air France Flight 447, investigators are mulling a range of possible explanations—lightning, bad electronics, a pilot error, or a combination of the three. Late last night the Brazilian airline TAM said its pilots spotted "several orange points," which they suspected was fire, in the ocean along the flight's route around the time it disappeared. More»

(NEWSER) - A missing Air France jet hit thunderstorms over the Atlantic, likely crashing and killing all 228 people on board, the AP reports. Half an hour after falling out of Brazilian radio contact, the Airbus A330 "crossed through a thunderous zone with strong turbulence”; Nicolas Sarkozy told families of those aboard that "prospects of finding survivors were very small." More»

Neither co-pilot had been trained for sensor malfunctions, new report says

(AP) - The crew piloting a doomed Air France jet over the Atlantic did not appear to know that the plane was in a stall, despite repeated warning signals, and never informed the passengers that anything was wrong before the jet plunged into the sea, according to new findings released today. Based on cockpit recordings from the crash, the French air accident investigation agency is recommending mandatory training for all pilots to help them fly planes manually and handle a high-altitude stall. More»

Crash victims pulled from wreckage could be preserved by icy depths

(NEWSER) - A French search team has pulled another 75 victims of the Air France Flight 447 crash out of the briny depths in recent days, a spokesman for the French military police said today. He would not say what condition the bodies were in, but Reuters notes that the first two bodies recovered from the crash—who were found still strapped to their airline seats at a depth of 12,800 feet—were well-preserved thanks to the icy temperatures at that depth. More»