Latest update on Air France Flight 447 crash by BEA

The flight disappeared off the radar about 1,500km from Brazil. The mystery surrounding the crash was amplified by numerous conflicting reports.

The investigators now believe the aircraft did not break apart mid air but thumped into the Ocean in a flying position, with the belly hitting the water first.

The search and recovery operation have led to 51 bodies being recovered and over 600 pieces of wreckage being retrieved from the Ocean.

In the first major report provided by the investigators, the BEA made the following observations form analysing the gathered materials and information .

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• Visual examination showed that the airplane was not destroyed in flight ; it appears to have struck the surface of the sea in a straight line with high vertical acceleration,
• the first bodies and airplane parts were found on 6 June,
• the elements identified came from all areas of the airplane,
• the Air France flight 447 crew possessed the licenses and ratings required to undertake the flight,
• the airplane [an Airbus A330] possessed a valid Certificate of Airworthiness, and had been maintained in accordance with the regulations,
• the airplane had taken off from Rio de Janeiro without any known technical problems, except on one of the three radio handling panels,
• no problems were indicated by the crew to Air France or during contacts with the Brazilian controllers,
• no distress messages were received by the control centres or by other airplanes,
• there were no satellite telephone communications between the airplane and the ground,
• the last radio exchange between the crew and Brazilian Air Traffic Control (ATC) occurred at 1 h 35 min 15 s. The airplane arrived at the edge of radar range of the Brazilian control centres,
• at 2 h 01, the crew tried, without success for the third time, to connect to the Dakar ATC ADS-C system,
• up to the last automatic position point, received at 2 h 10 min 35 s, the flight had followed the route indicated in the flight plan,
• the meteorological situation was typical of that encountered in the month of June in the inter-tropical convergence zone,
• there were powerful cumulonimbus clusters on the route of AF447. Some of them could have been the centre of some notable turbulence,
• several airplanes that were flying before and after AF 447, at about the same altitude, altered their routes in order to avoid cloud masses,
• twenty-four automatic maintenance messages were received between 2 h 10 and 2 h 15 via the ACARS system. These messages show inconsistency between the measured speeds as well as the associated consequences,
• before 2 h 10, no maintenance messages had been received from AF 447, with the exception of two messages relating to the configuration of the toilets,
• the operator's and the manufacturer's procedures mention actions to be undertaken by the crew when they have doubts as to the speed indications,
• the last ACARS message was received towards 2 h 14 min 28 s,
• the flight was not transferred between the Brazilian and Senegalese control centres,
• between 8 h and 8 h 30, the first emergency alert messages were sent by the Madrid and Brest control centres.

Source: Interim report published by BEA on 2 July 2009