Doomed Air France plane ‘plunged into sea intact’
‘Passengers not prepared for crash’
Published:
AN AIR France plane which crashed into the ocean plunged vertically into the water intact and at high speed, it was revealed today.
Experts searching for the cause of the Air France tragedy also revealed the plane’s speed sensors were a factor in the crash.
It was previously believed the Air France plane broke up in mid-air during severe weather conditions.
But Alain Bouillard, leading the investigation into the Air France crash, said: “Today we are very far from establishing the causes of the accident.”
The Air France Airbus A330-200, flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, went down 930 miles off Brazil’s mainland on June 1.
Among the 228 passengers on board the plane was Aberdeen oil boss Arthur Coakley.
The 61-year-old dad-of-three was a structural engineer for Project Design and Management Services Ltd and stayed in Stonehaven when in the North-east.
Graham Gardner, 52, from Renfrewshire, who worked for Westhill-based Subsea 7, was also on board.
His body was among 51 recovered after the Air France crash.
The French investigation agency BEA called the Air France incident one of history’s most challenging plane crash investigations.
It said one of the automatic messages sent by the Air France plane indicated it was receiving incorrect speed information from external monitoring instruments, which could destabilise its control systems.
Experts have suggested those external instruments might have iced over.
Today Mr Bouillard revealed the Air France plane “was not destroyed in flight” as was first thought.
He said: “The plane seems to have hit the surface of the water on its flight trajectory with a strong vertical acceleration.”
He added that investigators found “neither traces of fire nor traces of explosives”.
Mr Bouillard said life vests found among the crashed Air France plane were not inflated, suggesting passengers were not prepared for a crash landing, and it appeared the Air France pilots did not send out a mayday.
Signals from the sunken black boxes gave rescuers only a vague location of where to begin their search for the devices and hopes of their recovery continue to fade.
