Plane 'did not break up in mid-air'

ArticleData Array ( [Article] => Array ( [article_id] => 1043962 [headline] => Plane 'did not break up in mid-air' [abstract] => An Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic between Brazil and West Africa, killing all 228 people on board, hit the ocean intact, investigators say. [keywords] => plane, crash, Air France, Brazil, Atlantic, Flight 407 [content] =>

An Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic between Brazil and West Africa, killing all 228 people on board, hit the ocean intact, investigators say.

A month-long probe into the June 1 disaster also found that defective air speed monitors on the Airbus A330 were "a factor but not the cause" of the crash, the worst in Air France's history.
  
"The plane was not destroyed while in flight," said Alain Bouillard from the BEA accident investigation agency as it released its first report on the loss of Flight 447 from Rio de Janiero to Paris.
  
"The plane appears to have hit the surface of the water in flying position with a strong vertical acceleration," he said, adding that the Airbus came down in the water belly-first.
  
"The plane was intact at the time of impact," Bouillard told a news conference at BEA headquarters in Le Bourget outside Paris.
  
There had been speculation that problems with the Airbus' airspeed sensors, or pitot tubes, may have caused the plane to stall or fly dangerously fast, causing a high-altitude breakup.

Cause of crash still unclear
  
But investigators said that they had ruled out a mid-air breakup after carefully examining the 640 pieces of debris that have been recovered from the crash zone hundreds of kilometres off Brazil's coast.
  
The airliner's fin was discovered still attached to part of its base structure, further strengthening the view that the plane was all in one piece when it hit the water.
  
No inflated life jackets were found among the debris, said Bouillard, adding that "the passengers were obviously not prepared for an emergency sea landing."
  
The lead investigator said the air speed sensors were "one of the factors but it's not the only one" that led to the crash as the plane flew through turbulence.
  
"It's a factor but not the cause.
  
"We are still some distance away from establishing the causes of the accident," he said.

Inconsistent speed data
  
French investigators have focused on the air speed sensors which fed inconsistent readings to the cockpit shortly before it plunged into the Atlantic.
  
No distress call was received from the pilots, but there was a series of 24 automated messages sent by the plane in the final minutes of the doomed flight, investigators say.
  
The BEA, along with Airbus and Air France, have repeatedly said there is as yet no firm evidence linking the speed monitors to the crash of the jetliner.
  
Air France nevertheless has upgraded all sensors on its long-haul fleet as a precautionary measure after protests from pilots.
  
The BEA was reporting on its first findings even though an intensive deep-sea search for the plane's flight recorders has yet to yield results.
  
Brazil decided on June 27 to call off the recovery operation but France has maintained its nuclear submarine, research vessel and other boats in the area on a final hunt for the black boxes.

Flight recorders still missing
  
The BEA has decided to continue the search for the flight recorders until July 10.
  
The homing beacons on the flight recorders emit signals for about one month after the crash and the BEA hopes that they will have a longer-than-usual shelf life.
  
French investigators complained that they had yet to see the results of autopsies being performed on the 51 bodies pulled from the disaster area,  despite formal requests to Brazilian authorities.
  
The pilots of Flight 447 also failed to connect to the flight control center in Dakar, Senegal after leaving Brazil's zone, which meant that search and rescue operations could have been launched earlier, Bouillard said.
  
People from 32 different countries -- including 72 French citizens and 59 Brazilians -- were aboard the Airbus A330 when it came down.

 

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Bodies recovered in the Air France disaster show multiple fractures in the legs, hips and arms, suggesting the plane broke up in the air experts said.

A spokesman for Brazilian medical examiners told The Associated Press that autopsies on an undisclosed number of the 50 bodies recovered so far showed the fractures. The official spoke on condition he not be named due to department rules.

Midflight break up

The description of the bodies and large pieces of the plane recovered point to the jet breaking apart in the air, said Frank Ciacco, a former forensic expert at the US National Transportation Safety Board.

"Typically, if you see intact bodies and multiple fractures - arm, leg, hip fractures - it's a good indicator of a midflight break up," Ciacco said.

"Especially if you're seeing large pieces of aircraft as well."

Clothes ‘torn away’

On Wednesday, the O Estado de S Paulo newspaper - citing unnamed investigators - reported the pattern of fractures and said some of the victims were found with little or no clothing. The newspaper earlier reported the bodies also showed no signs of burns.

Jack Casey, an aviation safety consultant in Washington, DC, who is a former accident investigator, said the lack of clothing could be significant: "In an in-air break up like we are supposing here, the clothes are just torn away."

He also said multiple fractures are consistent with a midair breakup of the plane.

High impact

"Getting ejected into that kind of windstream is like hitting a brick wall - even if they stay in their seats, it is a crushing effect," Casey said. "Most of them were long dead before they hit the water would be my guess."

When a jet crashes into water mostly intact - such as the Egypt Air plane that hit the Atlantic Ocean after taking off from New York in 1999 - the debris and bodies are broken into small pieces, Ciacco said.

"When you've had impact in the water, there is a lot more fragmentation of the bodies. They hit the water with a higher force," he said.

Lack of burn evidence would not necessarily rule out an explosion somewhere outside the passenger cabin, said John Goglia, a former member of the US National Transportation Safety Board.

If something caused the lower fuselage to burn or explode, "passengers would not be exposed to any blast damage" and the plane would still disintegrate in flight," he said. "These are scenarios that cannot be ruled out."
 

[content_type_id] => 3 [site_name] => World News Australia [articledate] => 18 June 2009 [articletime] => 18 June 2009 [display_order] => 0 ) [1] => Array ( [article_id] => 1042331 [headline] => Timeline: Major recent plane crashes [abstract] => An Airbus A310 from Yemen with more than 150 people on board crashed into choppy seas as it came in to land on the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros on Tuesday, an airline official said. [content] =>

An Airbus A310 from Yemen with more than 150 people on board crashed into choppy seas as it came in to land on the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros on Tuesday, an airline official said.

It is the second Airbus to plunge into the sea this month. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean killing 228 people on board on June 1.

Here are details of recent major plane crashes.

June 30, 2009 - A Yemen Airways aircraft carrying a total of 153 people crashes in the waters of the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros.

June 1 - An Air France Airbus A330-200 jetliner carrying 228 people crashes over the Atlantic. Fifty-one bodies and 600 pieces of wreckage are recovered before the search for survivors is called off on June 26.

May 20 - An Indonesian C130 military transport plane carrying 110 passengers and crew crashes and bursts into flames 6.5 km from the Iswahyudi air force base in East Java while preparing to land, killing 98 people including two on the ground.

Sept. 16, 2008: One-Two-Go, a budget Thai airliner carrying 123 passengers and several crew crashes on landing at the resort island of Phuket. At least 85 of the 123 passengers were killed and five of the seven crew.

Aug. 24 - A Boeing 737-200 belonging to a private Kyrgyz company Itek-Air, chartered by an Iranian company and bound for Iran, crashes at Bishkek airport. Around 70 people, including members of a local teenage basketball team, died.

Aug. 20 - A Spanair MD-82, flying to the Canary Islands with 166 passengers and six crew, crashes on takeoff at Madrid airport killing 154 people. The remaining 18 are seriously injured.

July 17 - A Brazilian TAM passenger plane crashes into buildings when trying to land in Sao Paulo, killing 199 people aboard and on the ground.

May 5 - All 114 people on board a Kenya Airways Boeing 737 are killed after the plane crashed in torrential rain after takeoff from Douala in Cameroon en route to Nairobi.

Oct. 29, 2007 - A Boeing 737 operated by domestic carrier ADC, crashes after take off on a flight from the Nigerian capital Abuja to Sokoto. Only seven of the 106 people aboard the flight survived. Among the dead was Ibrahim Muhammadu, who as Sultan of Sokoto was the leader of the Muslim community.

Sept. 29 - One hundred and fifty-four people are killed when a Boeing 737-800 operated by low-cost Gol airline crashes in the Amazon rain forest.

Jan. 1 - An Indonesian Boeing 737-400 operated by budget carrier Adam Air disappeared from radar screens during a flight from Java to Sulawesi islands. Wreckage was located at sea 10 days later. All 102 passengers and crew were killed.

Aug. 22, 2006 - A Russian Tu-154 operated by Pulkovo Airlines crashes 30 miles (48 km) north of the east Ukrainian town of Donetsk, killing all 170 passengers and crew.

(Additional writing by Gillian Murdoch)

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