In the area where Brazilian aviation officials reported Tuesday findingdebris, ocean depths average just over 9,000 feet. It has not been confirmedwhether this debris was from the Air France aircraft that went missing over theAtlantic Sunday evening. However, if the plane did go down in this depth of theocean, salvage efforts will almost be impractical.To put things in perspective, the Titanic lies at a depth of 12,600 feet, adepth that requires special submarines to reach it. Once it has been confirmedthat the debris is from the Air France jet, the next issue will be finding theplane on in the deep ocean.
The ocean currents in the search area go from west to east. The debris fieldwill be traveling with the ocean currents toward the African coast. The typicalspeed of the ocean current is about 5 mph. At that speed it will take about aweek before any debris would reach the African coast.
Once the airplane is found, the salvage efforts will be hampered by heavythunderstorms. These thunderstorms will develop on a daily basis as theIntertropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ becomes more active over the nextseveral months.
In addition, large clusters of thunderstorms will roll off the African coastabout every few days. If conditions are right, the thunderstorms can form intotropical depressions or tropical storms. Thus salvage experts will likely haveto fight heavy storms and rough seas almost daily while trying to reach theremains of the airplane.
According to Brazilian aviation officials, wreckage was found in theAtlantic Ocean over 400 miles off the northern coast of Brazil. The debrissighted includes metallic objects and plane seats.
Story by AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity
