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The French navy has located the immediate area around the flight recorders from Air France flight AF447 which crashed in the Atlantic last year. They are now within a 3 nautical mile area of the black boxes, which is 200 nautical miles north-west of the Brazilian archipelago of Sao Pedro and Sao Paulo.

However retrieving the Air France Airbus black boxes from the ocean floor might be near impossible.

The cause of the crash remains unknown but the aircrafts airspeed had given false readings, but officials believe other factors must also have contributed including blocked pitot probes or rudder failure similar to a crash in New York in November 2001.

Finding the black boxes from AF 447 will reveal flight data and cockpit conversations, allowing investigators to build a computer model of the final moments of the flight.

A French navy spokesman said: ‘It’s like trying to find a shoe-box in an area the size of Paris, at a depth of almost 10,000 feet and in a terrain as rugged as the Alps.’ and this search for AF447 is apparently ‘one of the most complex undersea operations ever’.

It will be interesting to see if any black boxes are found almost 1 year after the disaster.

The hero pilot, Captain Sullenberger, who landed his Airbus 320 safely on the Hudson River, in New York, on Jan 15 2009 has retired after 30 years.

Captain Sullenberger, 59, officially retired at a private ceremony in Charlotte after flying his last commercial gig, Flight 1167 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida – landing 17 minutes ahead of schedule.

Captain Sullenberger also flew with the same co-pilot as during the Hudson landing of US Airways Flight 1549, First Officer Jeff Skiles. Also on board were some of the same passengers that were on Flight 1549 to celebrate his final flight.

If you don’t know the history of Flight 1549 and the amazing landing on the Hudson, check out the video below.

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.

There has been some speculation (including myself from day 1) that the rudder was a key element to the investigation of the air crash of Flight AF447. The tail was found last week and investigators are now reviewing whether or not the Airbus rudder was an issue. They are focusing on the part of the rudder which controls how much the rudder can move.  Normally, a limiter prevents the rudder from swinging or moving too far – at high speeds an incorrectly positioned rudder could sheer off.  There has been some speculation in the media that this Airbus had some issues regarding the rudder – I find this hard to believe, as any aircraft snag list which highlighted a rudder problem, you can be guaranteed that Air France would have brought the aircraft in for immediate repair.

[caption id="attachment_157" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Part of the Airbus Rudder / Vertical Stabiliser of Flight AF447"][/caption]

Technicians will be able to review the metal structure, looking for corrosion or metal sheer and may be able to deduce if the rudder failed on its own or if air speed was a factor.  There are many large bolts in the area of the vertical stabiliser and perhaps one of these failed – however if you look at the amount of the tail fin was recovered it actually is only the fin part and does not come near the area where the structure is housed and secured.

Other air crashes which had rudder problems include on famous case in Japan where a JAL Boeing 747SR lost part of its rudder and crashed into a mountain. Other cases include SilkAir Flight 185, American Airlines Flight 587.

There are now many vessels, including some from USA and France covering hundreds of square kilometers every day listening for the pingers on the black boxes and flight data recorders which will stop working in about 2 weeks.

The next 2 weeks will be vital in the search for clues to why this modern airliner crashed.
I am going to remain quiet on this subject until the next major update from Brazil.

Two passengers who are known to authorities to be linked to Islamic terrorism were on board the Air France flight 447 which crashed last week. The French secret service established the highly significant terror connection (names of passengers who are radical Muslims considered a threat to the French Republic) while reviewing the AF447 passenger list.

It is almost certain that there were computer malfunctions possibly caused by a frozen pitot tube which resulted in slow transit into the story – terrorism has still not been ruled out in this case. One source has said that the names of these passengers could simply be a coincidence and that they are not terrorists at all.

France has received a few threats from radical Islamic terrorists groups since the French troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan in the “War on Terror”. French Security chiefs have been worried similar suicide attacks to September 11th. It is improbable that a terror organisation would want to do anything at such a remote location, in the past they have used highly populated cities and buildings to carry out their actions – unless perhaps any bomb or device was triggered prematurely with disastrous consequences.

A French nuclear submarine is now in the area listening for the Black Box pingers which will cease to operate in about 3 weeks. So far 41 bodies have been recovered, as well as the tail & rudder and some smaller pieces of Af447s debris about 1,100 kms off the coast of Brazil.