Air France plane crashed into sea intact, on its belly

Investigators have begun to narrow down clues to what caused the Airbus A330 to plunge off the coast of Brazil.

By NICOLA CLARK and MATTHEW L. WALD , New York Times

Last update: July 2, 2009 - 8:26 PM

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PARIS - The Air France Airbus A330 that crashed into the Atlantic on June 1, killing all 228 people aboard, did not break up in the air but rather hit the water intact, on its belly, French investigators said Thursday.

But investigators acknowledged that they still had no clear understanding of the reason for the crash of Air France Flight 447. The plane was flying through an area of strong thunderstorms when it went down 600 miles off northern Brazil en route to Paris.

Analysis of autopsies and debris patterns in the weeks after the crash had seemed to bolster speculation that the plane had broken up in flight. But the investigators said that their examination of floating debris indicated that the plane plummeted on its belly onto the ocean surface, facing in the direction of its intended route.

Alain Bouillard, who is leading the French investigation, said that among the evidence was that shelves in the galley had compressed to the bottom.

The investigators said they would continue trying to detect signals from the "black boxes" -- the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder -- until July 10, when the batteries powering their beacons are expected to be exhausted.

After that, they will search using diving equipment and towed sonar. The black boxes -- which are in reality bright orange -- are resting somewhere on an underwater mountain range filled with crevasses and uneven terrain.

Without the information from the flight recorders, the main source of information about what happened to the plane is a series of messages sent automatically from the plane to a maintenance base.

The investigators said that the flight had no radio contact with Brazilian air-traffic control in its final 39 minutes, leaving the maintenance transmissions the plane's last known communications. Airbus has said that the messages indicate that Flight 447's problems may have begun with "unreliable air speed indication" and that other indicated failures could have been consequences.

A faulty air speed indicator could mislead pilots into flying faster or slower than the plane could handle. Some initial suspicions were that the plane had flown too fast, possibly into turbulence, causing it to break up.

But flying too fast or too slow could also disrupt the flow of air over the wing, causing the plane to lose lift and fall.

Also, in an area of thunderstorms, high-altitude temperatures can be unusually warm and the air thin, narrowing the range of speeds at which an aircraft can be controlled.

Airbus, the manufacturer, had recommended replacement of a component of the air speed indicators, called the Pitot tube, and Air France had replaced the tubes on some of its airplanes but not on the one that crashed.

Bouillard said the Pitot tubes are possibly "an element" in the crash, "but not the cause."

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