Air France Flight 447 sent out 24 automated error messages — including one saying the aircraft’s autopilot had disengaged — before it vanished with 228 people on board, aviation investigators said Saturday.
But even as they analyzed the error messages and satellite images of the doomed flight’s path, investigators said they still have a lot of work to determine what caused the plane to go down.
“I would just like to ask you to bear in mind that all of this is dynamic and there are a lot of question marks,” Paul-Louis Arslanian, head of France’s accident investigation bureau told reporters.
“We don’t know how the aircraft entered the water. We don’t know how these pieces of debris entered into the water and that you have to take into account the current … and the shape of the ocean floor.”
The error messages suggest that the plane may have been flying too fast or too slow through the stormy weather it encountered before the crash, officials said.
In addition, investigators have said the plane’s autopilot disengaged, cabin pressure was lost and there was an electrical failure before the disaster.
The jet’s manufacturer, Airbus, sent a Telex to operators of Airbus models reminding them of what to do when speed indicators give conflicting readings.
The spokesman said the notice does not mean there is any major flaw in the aircraft, but is simply a reminder to pilots of what to do in the cockpit if they get conflicting information about air speed.
All 228 passengers and crew aboard the Airbus 330 are presumed to have died when the plane disappeared northeast of the Fernando de Noronha Islands, an archipelago 355 kilometers (220 miles) off the northeast coast of Brazil.
The flight originated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and was en route to Paris, France.
Search teams were still trying to find debris from the jet Saturday, two days after a Brazilian Air Force official said debris plucked from the ocean was not from the Air France jet.
Official: Missing plane sent 24 error messages
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1 comment
Alice says:
June 6, 2009 at 12:00 pm (UTC -6)
Regarding the Air France flight 447.
“PILOTS BEING INSTRUCTED TO FLY THROUGH THE STORM AS OPPOSED TO AROUND IT IN ORDER TO CUT COSTS”??!!
I have been hearing that the airlines, in order to “cut costs” have been directing the pilots to fly through the storm as opposed to around it. This is absurd and murderous. I’m not sure how much human life means to them (maybe they are always on private jets), or would take greater precaution for them and their own…but for the general public who are flying this is hazardous. This is a form of direct negligence from the airlines that will kill people, but maybe get their attention more because they’ve lost an aircraft. If this is the case, that pilots are instructed to fly through storms, this needs media attention and for the general public (who are the ones to be affected directly and indirectly) mandatory that they know. People need to be aware that these pilots have no other choice than to fly through a storm and risk the lives of passengers on the plane and indirectly the lives of those in sea and land.