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French issue interim report on Air France Flight 447 - A330 hit water "in a straight line"
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There’s an interim report out on the crash of Air France Flight 447. In it, BEA—the French air accident investigation agency—concludes that the Airbus A330-200, “was not destroyed in flight; it appears to have struck the surface of the sea in a straight line with high vertical acceleration.” In other words, belly first.
The report goes on to characterize the kind of weather the big twinjet encountered over the Atlantic the night of June 1: “There were powerful cumulonimbus clusters on the route of AF447,” says the report. “Some of them could be the centre of some notable turbulence…several airplanes that were flying before and after AF447, at about the same altitude, altered their routes in order to avoid cloud masses.”
One of the more telling findings has already been reported on extensively. The BEA’s report says, “Twenty-four automatic maintenance messages were received [between 2:10 and 2:15]. These messages show inconsistency between the measured speeds.”
That was the genesis of recent focus on the aircraft’s pitot tubes, or speed sensors.
CNN quotes BEA investigator Alain Bouillard as saying, “We are very far from establishing the causes of this accident.” As for questions about the airworthiness of the A330 fleet, CNN quotes Bouillard as contending, “There is no problem with flying these airplanes.”
The June 1 crash killed all 228 souls on board the Airbus.The aircraft's Digital Fight Data Recorder (DFDR) and CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) have yet to be recovered. They could provide the keys to establishing a Probable Cause of the tragedy.
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