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The findings of the official Air France Investigation report that Air France Flight AF 447 did not break up in mid air, instead, hit the water intact. The French Air Accident Investigation bureau (BEA) said that the aircraft appears to have hit the water in flying position with strong vertical acceleration.

The airbus hit the water belly first but with an almost vertical descent. Hitting the water very very fast, items at the front of the aircraft were pushed to the back. It is unknown if the pilots were in control of the aircraft before it crashed. At that speed, the G-Forces would have the pilots pushed back in their seats and would possibly be unable to move their arms etc.

The black box and flight data recorders still have not been found and it is now over 30 days since flight AF447 crashed – they will continue searching for 10 more days. Honeywell, who make the black boxes, say that they have a 100% recovery record for FDRs. I think it is highly unlikely that these will now be found, unless they are entangled in a large piece of fuselage. What wasn’t addressed in the press release was (a) the multiple error messages and (b) how much of the fuselage of the airbus has been recovered.

Until they are found we will not know for definite what caused the crash.

Another Airbus aircraft has crashed, this time a Yemeni airliner crashed in the Indian Ocean. The Yemenia Airbus 310 flight IY626 was flying from the Yemeni capital Sanaa – however the flight originated in France.

The only survivor (this far) was a five-year-old child.

Apparently EU officials did question Yemenia’s safety record and proposed a world blacklist of those carriers which they deemed to be unsafe. It is usually not the aircraft which is the problem but more often than not, poor maintenance or poor (substitute) parts which have been found in many crashes, which can contribute towards air disasters. These are 2 very different aircraft and 2 companies with very different records – so you cannot really draw anything into them having the same manufacturer. There are also rumours that France banned this airline in 2007.

The Airbus that crashed on June 1st and this Airbus both crashed at similar Longitudes, both flying at night, both around the equator, and were both Airbus flying in windy weather – but apart from that there are no details about whether or not a mayday message was issued.  One official did say thatthe  control tower had received notification the plane was on vectors for approach, a few miles out, and then lost contact with it.

After the Air France Airbus crash on June 1, NTSB accident investigators have been probing two recent failures of airspeed and altitude sensors and pitot tubes aboard Airbus A330s. The failures occurred on flights between the United States and Brazil in May and between Hong Kong and Japan in June. Both aircraft landed safely and there were no injuries or damage, however it is an unusual occurrance.

This latest crash comes near the point where a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 crashed near a beach on the Comoros islands in 1996, killing 125 of 175 passengers and crew.  Many of those who died had inflated their life jackets inside the aircraft – the crash was filmed on camera, as holiday makers lay enjoying the sun.

Over 3 days after the event, progress is still quite slow. Many news agencies are even reporting that Air France received bomb threats in the days leading up to the event.

So far a large debris field has been found, but the largest section found to date is only 7 metres in length. The investigators are pescimistic about finding the black boxes which are reported to be between 9,800 – 12,000 feet below the surface.

There are still a lot of conflicting theories on what happened. On this site I have seen lots of people searching for “Flight 447 UFO” – this is ridiculous … strange people out there!

It could take 1-2 weeks before they collect enough wreckage to run metalurgical tests to check for explosive traces or the distinctive bending of the metal which is caused when a bomb explodes.

All anyone can do now is wait and see.