BelindaJacob
Platinum Member
- Nov 24, 2008
- 6,474
- 4,022
Habari zinachanganya kwa sasa,waendelee kuitafuta tu. Kama sinema!
Eniwei, TGIF na tufurahie maisha yetu maana ni mafupi.
Air France with 228 people missing!
- Thread starter MzalendoHalisi
- Start date
Habari zinachanganya kwa sasa,waendelee kuitafuta tu. Kama sinema!
Eniwei, TGIF na tufurahie maisha yetu maana ni mafupi.
Sonara
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 2, 2008
- 726
- 68
sasa unataka kutwambia kuwa hiyo ndege wame H jack na kuipeleka TALIBANI?
Azimio Jipya
JF-Expert Member
- Nov 27, 2007
- 3,362
- 1,130
Sonara
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 2, 2008
- 726
- 68
[Dada Belindajacob maelezo zidi haya hapa
REUTERS
Friday, 05 June 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Air France jet was flying too slowly
© REUTERS2009
PARIS (Reuters) - The Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean Monday was flying too slowly ahead of the disaster, Le Monde newspaper said Thursday, citing sources close to the inquiry.
The paper said the manufacturer of the doomed plane, Airbus, was set to issue a recommendation advising companies using the A330 aircraft of optimal speeds during poor weather conditions.
Airbus declined to comment on the report and the French air accident investigation agency, which has to validate any such recommendations, known as an Aircraft Information Telex, was not immediately available for comment.
The Air France A330-200 was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it plunged into the Atlantic four hours into its flight. All 228 people on board died.
The plane sent no mayday signals before crashing, only a stream of automatic messages over a three minute period after it entered a zone of stormy weather, showing a rapid succession of electrical faults followed by a loss of cabin pressure.
It was not clear if slow air speed alone could trigger such a cataclysmic breakdown of aircraft systems, but any recommendations from Airbus about its A330s would fuel speculation over the causes of the crash.
"FLASH OF WHITE LIGHT"
Experts have questioned whether extreme turbulence or decompression during stormy weather might have caused the disaster -- the worst in Air France's 75-year history.
Spanish newspaper El Mundo said a trans-atlantic airline pilot reported seeing a bright flash of white light at the same time the Air France flight disappeared.
"Suddenly we saw in the distance a strong, intense flash of white light that took a downward, vertical trajectory and disappeared in six seconds," the pilot of an Air Comet flight from Lima to Madrid told his company, the newspaper reported.
A spokesman for Madrid-based airline Air Comet was not immediately available to confirm the El Mundo article.
Asked about whether there could have been an explosion or bomb on the plane, an armed forces spokesman in Paris said they were not ruling anything out at the moment.
"Everyone has doubts about everything at the moment and we do not have the slightest beginnings of an answer yet," said armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck.
Search crews flying over the Atlantic have found debris from the jet spread over more than 55 miles (90 km) of ocean, about 685 miles (1,100 km) northeast of Brazil's coast.
Prazuck said the priority was to localise debris and retrieve it as soon as possible before it sank. He added that sea currents were dispersing the wreckage.
Brazilian naval vessels are heading to the crash zone and a French frigate is due to arrive in the area on June 7. A boat carrying a mini submarine capable of hunting the plane's black boxes is expected to arrive there on June 12.
One French and two Dutch cargo ships that are nearby the crash site have been asked to help find debris, Prazuck said.
(Reporting by Crispian Balmer and Estelle Shirbon in Paris and Andrew Hay in Madrid; Editing by Alison Williams
Ab-Titchaz
JF-Expert Member
- Jan 30, 2008
- 14,631
- 4,225
Duh!!!...haya basi mkuu wa ma-avatar ya kutisha...wamechukuliwa
na jamaa zako...LOL!...
BelindaJacob
Platinum Member
- Nov 24, 2008
- 6,474
- 4,022
Bodies 'found' from missing plane
Two bodies and debris have been found from the Air France plane which went missing over the Atlantic last Monday, the Brazilian air force has said. The remains were taken from the water early on Saturday morning, said spokesman Jorge Amaral.
Experts on human remains are on their way to examine the find.
All 228 passengers and crew on board AF 447 are believed to have been killed when the plane disappeared during its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
"We confirm the recovery from the water debris and bodies from the Air France plane," Col Amaral said at a news conference in the northern city of Recife.
He later added that two male bodies had been found, as well as objects linked to passengers known to be on the flight, including a suitcase with a plane ticket.
A seat was also found, but there has been no confirmation that it was from the flight.
More on www.bbc.co.uk
Two bodies and debris have been found from the Air France plane which went missing over the Atlantic last Monday, the Brazilian air force has said. The remains were taken from the water early on Saturday morning, said spokesman Jorge Amaral.
Experts on human remains are on their way to examine the find.
All 228 passengers and crew on board AF 447 are believed to have been killed when the plane disappeared during its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
"We confirm the recovery from the water debris and bodies from the Air France plane," Col Amaral said at a news conference in the northern city of Recife.
He later added that two male bodies had been found, as well as objects linked to passengers known to be on the flight, including a suitcase with a plane ticket.
A seat was also found, but there has been no confirmation that it was from the flight.
More on www.bbc.co.uk
Sonara
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 2, 2008
- 726
- 68
Upo wapi Belindajacob nimepata maelezo zaidi ya ile ndege ya ufaransa nimehisi nikupatie kwani ulikuwa na kiherehere kibwa imenitia moja kuwa you realy care about any one wewe ndio mtanzania halisi
Saturday, 06 June 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bodies found from Air France crash
© ITN 2009
Brazilian search crews have found bodies and debris from the Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic, an air force spokesman has said.
Spokesman Jorge Amaral said that the first bodies from the crash were found early on Saturday morning.
Mr Amaral said: "This morning at 8:14am, we confirmed the rescue from the water of pieces and bodies that belonged to the Air France flight."
Among the debris retrieved was a seat with a serial number that matched the missing flight, a rucksack, and a case with an Air France ticket inside, rescue officials said.
Brazil's air force has been scouring a swathe of the Atlantic about 680 miles northeast of Brazil's coast since Monday's crash, which killed all 228 people on board.
Several Brazilian navy ships have also arrived in the area, but fears have grown that many bodies sank.
It was the the world's deadliest air disaster since 2001 and the worst in Air France's 75-year history.
Meanwhile, investigators have said that the autopilot on the flight was not working.
Those on board included five Britons, 12 crewmembers, a baby and seven children.
Pre-crash signals from Flight 447, which went down en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris last Sunday, showed the autopilot was not working, French investigators said.
Paul-Louis Arslanian, the head of the French agency leading the crash investigation, said it was not clear if the pilots switched it off or it stopped working because it received conflicting airspeed readings.
Plane manufacturer Airbus said the probe found the flight received inconsistent readings from different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm.
Meteorologists said the Air France jet entered an unusual storm with 100mph updrafts that acted as a vacuum, sucking water up from the ocean.
The moist air rushed up to the plane's high altitude, where it quickly froze in minus-40 degree temperatures. The updrafts also would have created dangerous turbulence.
Investigators are still searching a zone of several hundred square miles for debris from the crash, after earlier reports that wreckage had been found in the Atlantic were found to be wrong.
Sophist
Platinum Member
- Mar 26, 2009
- 4,484
- 3,400
Searchers find 17 bodies from Air France crash
By Alan Levin, USA TODAY
Searchers found 17 bodies in the Atlantic Ocean near where an Air France flight disappeared last week as new data suggested pilots could have been facing a cascade of competing warnings in the moments before the crash.
Teams recovered two bodies Saturday and 15 Sunday, Brazilian Air Force Col. Henry Munhoz said. Four of the bodies were men and four were women, he said, but rescue teams could not provide the others' genders.
Searchers are now certain they have found wreckage from the Airbus A330 carrying 228 people, all of whom are presumed dead. They have seen two airplane seats, a briefcase with a ticket from the flight, wing fragments and other items.
"We're sailing through a sea of debris," Brazilian Navy Capt. Giucemar Tabosa Cardoso said.
The flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed possibly breaking up in midair after flying into storms near the equator between Brazil and Africa. Investigators have not determined the cause of the crash.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Boeing | National Transportation Safety Board | Airbus | Air France | Qantas
In an indication of what might have gone wrong, French investigators said that at least one of the jet's airspeed indicators had failed. The information came from data messages sent via satellite in the minutes before the crash, according to the BEA, the French agency investigating.
Similar failures, which could be triggered by ice that blocks the tube that measures airspeed, have caused several crashes in the past, according to accident data. In some cases, pilots received confusing simultaneous warnings that they were going too fast and too slow.
Ben Berman, an airline pilot who formerly investigated accidents at the National Transportation Safety Board, said pilots train for such emergencies. Even so, he said, contradictory messages could conceivably trick a pilot into speeding up so fast that a plane would begin breaking apart.
John Cox, a former airline pilot who works as an aviation safety consultant, said the pilots would have been facing a "very distracting and difficult situation" as they tried to diagnose the problem.
It's too early to say for sure that a faulty airspeed indicator caused the crash, but there have been several accidents and serious incidents triggered by similar problems, said Kevin Darcy, a consultant and former chief accident investigator for Boeing.
On Oct. 2, 1996, for example, an AeroPeru Boeing 757 crashed off the coast of Peru, killing all 70 people aboard, after the pilots became confused about their speed and altitude. Workers had taped over gauges used to measure air pressure, which prompted erroneous speed and altitude indications, investigators found.
Though it was triggered by an errant computer, not a malfunctioning airspeed indicator, an incident on Oct. 7 on a Qantas A330 caused the jet to briefly dive violently, according to Australian investigators.
Last week, Airbus sent a notice to carriers flying the A330, reminding them that pilots should not take drastic action in response to unexpected airspeed fluctuations, spokesman Clay McConnell said. Airbus, along with other manufacturers, recommends that pilots maintain level flight and keep power at normal settings in such cases.
Airbus had recently recommended that Air France and other airlines replace devices known as pitot tubes that calculate airspeed changes by measuring air pressure. The BEA said Air France had not completed the replacement.
Contributing: Associated Press
By Alan Levin, USA TODAY
Searchers found 17 bodies in the Atlantic Ocean near where an Air France flight disappeared last week as new data suggested pilots could have been facing a cascade of competing warnings in the moments before the crash.
Teams recovered two bodies Saturday and 15 Sunday, Brazilian Air Force Col. Henry Munhoz said. Four of the bodies were men and four were women, he said, but rescue teams could not provide the others' genders.
Searchers are now certain they have found wreckage from the Airbus A330 carrying 228 people, all of whom are presumed dead. They have seen two airplane seats, a briefcase with a ticket from the flight, wing fragments and other items.
"We're sailing through a sea of debris," Brazilian Navy Capt. Giucemar Tabosa Cardoso said.
The flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed possibly breaking up in midair after flying into storms near the equator between Brazil and Africa. Investigators have not determined the cause of the crash.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Boeing | National Transportation Safety Board | Airbus | Air France | Qantas
In an indication of what might have gone wrong, French investigators said that at least one of the jet's airspeed indicators had failed. The information came from data messages sent via satellite in the minutes before the crash, according to the BEA, the French agency investigating.
Similar failures, which could be triggered by ice that blocks the tube that measures airspeed, have caused several crashes in the past, according to accident data. In some cases, pilots received confusing simultaneous warnings that they were going too fast and too slow.
Ben Berman, an airline pilot who formerly investigated accidents at the National Transportation Safety Board, said pilots train for such emergencies. Even so, he said, contradictory messages could conceivably trick a pilot into speeding up so fast that a plane would begin breaking apart.
John Cox, a former airline pilot who works as an aviation safety consultant, said the pilots would have been facing a "very distracting and difficult situation" as they tried to diagnose the problem.
It's too early to say for sure that a faulty airspeed indicator caused the crash, but there have been several accidents and serious incidents triggered by similar problems, said Kevin Darcy, a consultant and former chief accident investigator for Boeing.
On Oct. 2, 1996, for example, an AeroPeru Boeing 757 crashed off the coast of Peru, killing all 70 people aboard, after the pilots became confused about their speed and altitude. Workers had taped over gauges used to measure air pressure, which prompted erroneous speed and altitude indications, investigators found.
Though it was triggered by an errant computer, not a malfunctioning airspeed indicator, an incident on Oct. 7 on a Qantas A330 caused the jet to briefly dive violently, according to Australian investigators.
Last week, Airbus sent a notice to carriers flying the A330, reminding them that pilots should not take drastic action in response to unexpected airspeed fluctuations, spokesman Clay McConnell said. Airbus, along with other manufacturers, recommends that pilots maintain level flight and keep power at normal settings in such cases.
Airbus had recently recommended that Air France and other airlines replace devices known as pitot tubes that calculate airspeed changes by measuring air pressure. The BEA said Air France had not completed the replacement.
Contributing: Associated Press
MzalendoHalisi
JF-Expert Member
- Jun 24, 2007
- 4,520
- 1,368
- Thread starter
- #71
Hawa wanaotafuta miili ya hawa waliokufa ktk ya bahari..hawa kweli ndo wanaume!!!
Abdulhalim
Platinum Member
- Jul 20, 2007
- 17,193
- 3,011
Mazee hizo picha zako mboni hazifunguki..au ndo mambo ya vazi la mfalme?
Herbalist Dr MziziMkavu
JF-Expert Member
- Feb 3, 2009
- 42,319
- 33,125
Searchers recover Air France tail fin
Brazilian military authorities say boats searching the Atlantic Ocean have now recovered 24 bodies of passengers on an Air France flight that crashed eight days ago.
Air Force Colonel Henry Munhoz said eight more bodies were found on Monday. He offered no details on their condition or gender.
The bodies were found near where 16 others have been recovered since Saturday - roughly 640km northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.
Air France Flight 447 crashed on May 31 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 people on board are presumed dead.
A Brazilian search team on Monday recovered the tail fin from an Air France jet that plunged into the Atlantic a week ago, the first important piece of debris from the accident, officials said.
The Brazilian navy released photos showing four divers securing the half-submerged fin - also known as the vertical stabiliser - while another four helped from an inflatable rubber dinghy.
A spokesman for the Brazilian air force, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Munhoz, told reporters in the northeastern city of Recife that the piece would be taken to the Atlantic archipelago of Fernando de Noronha.
From there, it would be flown to Recife for closer inspection.
The find could be especially significant because it could point to the location underwater of the black boxes, which are mounted in the tail section of commercial aircraft.
It is hoped the boxes - the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder - could yield vital clues as to the reason of the crash.
Air France flight AF 447 was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people on board when it came down on June 1 in mysterious circumstances. No distress call was received from the pilots.
Meanwhile, Brazilian officials were preparing Monday to receive the first 16 bodies found in the Atlanic Ocean.
Military spokesman revised the number of bodies recovered by French and Brazilian ships over the weekend down from the 17 previously announced.
They said a French frigate handed over one less than expected, but did not explain the discrepancy.
Those remains, and dozens of structural components from the plane also plucked from the waves, were expected to arrive in the Brazilian archipelago Fernando de Noronha early on Tuesday.
From there the bodies would be flown to the mainland coastal city of Recife, a navy spokesman there, Captain Guicemar Tabosa told reporters.
Brazilian police forensic teams have been set up to identify the bodies using dental records and DNA from relatives
Brazilian military authorities say boats searching the Atlantic Ocean have now recovered 24 bodies of passengers on an Air France flight that crashed eight days ago.
Air Force Colonel Henry Munhoz said eight more bodies were found on Monday. He offered no details on their condition or gender.
The bodies were found near where 16 others have been recovered since Saturday - roughly 640km northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.
Air France Flight 447 crashed on May 31 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 people on board are presumed dead.
A Brazilian search team on Monday recovered the tail fin from an Air France jet that plunged into the Atlantic a week ago, the first important piece of debris from the accident, officials said.
The Brazilian navy released photos showing four divers securing the half-submerged fin - also known as the vertical stabiliser - while another four helped from an inflatable rubber dinghy.
A spokesman for the Brazilian air force, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Munhoz, told reporters in the northeastern city of Recife that the piece would be taken to the Atlantic archipelago of Fernando de Noronha.
From there, it would be flown to Recife for closer inspection.
The find could be especially significant because it could point to the location underwater of the black boxes, which are mounted in the tail section of commercial aircraft.
It is hoped the boxes - the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder - could yield vital clues as to the reason of the crash.
Air France flight AF 447 was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people on board when it came down on June 1 in mysterious circumstances. No distress call was received from the pilots.
Meanwhile, Brazilian officials were preparing Monday to receive the first 16 bodies found in the Atlanic Ocean.
Military spokesman revised the number of bodies recovered by French and Brazilian ships over the weekend down from the 17 previously announced.
They said a French frigate handed over one less than expected, but did not explain the discrepancy.
Those remains, and dozens of structural components from the plane also plucked from the waves, were expected to arrive in the Brazilian archipelago Fernando de Noronha early on Tuesday.
From there the bodies would be flown to the mainland coastal city of Recife, a navy spokesman there, Captain Guicemar Tabosa told reporters.
Brazilian police forensic teams have been set up to identify the bodies using dental records and DNA from relatives
Ab-Titchaz
JF-Expert Member
- Jan 30, 2008
- 14,631
- 4,225
Mwawado
JF-Expert Member
- Nov 2, 2006
- 993
- 252
Ugandan couple feared dead in French plane crash:
Tabu Butagira - Kampala
The yet-mystifying fall in Atlantic Ocean of the Air France airbus early on Monday snapped the attention of curious Ugandan news watchers as a casual plane disaster in the distance. But the magnitude of the mid-air horror nodded home yesterday after it emerged that a Ugandan couple returning from a honeymoon in Brazil was aboard the ill-fated flight 447.
A source that preferred that Air France, proprietors of the airline, formally announces the tragic news, however, said family members told close friends that newlyweds; Mr Timothy Ekironyoro and wife, Susan Mofeti perished in the crash. This is the first time news breaks of the presence of Ugandan nationals aboard the Air France carrier flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
By yesterday, the Ugandan embassy in France, that a couple of days ago said no Ugandan was on board the plane, expressed shock over the Ugandan victims.
Mr Stephen Wamono, the administrative attaché at the Ugandan embassy in Paris, but who said he was offering private views, said: "We were just grieving because lives had been lost and saying sorry to our French friends. We did not have any idea that Ugandans were involved.
This information you have provided will help us follow up the matter."
Daily Monitor could not readily crosscheck the latest report with Air France as the company's phone line was jammed, apparently by hundreds of callers making varying inquiries about their loved ones.
News of the tragic end of a marital bliss is particularly unsettling in Uganda where only a handful can afford to fly to exclusive resorts abroad for holiday or marriage celebrations. We could not establish if the couple lived overseas.
It was not also immediately clear why Ugandan diplomats in Paris did not in the first place pick interest to inquire about the possibility of Ugandan nationals being aboard the Air France airbus.
The Times newspaper of London reported online that ships had begun trawling the crash area, spread over a 200-mile stretch as different theories emerged on what could have brought down the plane. Some experts suggested pilot error could have forced the plane to stall and break into pieces in violent storms moments after the plane manufacturer rushed out new guideline to operators on handling A330-200 aircrafts in turbulent weather.
Officials said debris, including airliner seats, believed to be that of the Air France airbus were identified from the air, about 800 miles off the Brazilian coast.
Source: The Monitor Magazine.
Tabu Butagira - Kampala
The yet-mystifying fall in Atlantic Ocean of the Air France airbus early on Monday snapped the attention of curious Ugandan news watchers as a casual plane disaster in the distance. But the magnitude of the mid-air horror nodded home yesterday after it emerged that a Ugandan couple returning from a honeymoon in Brazil was aboard the ill-fated flight 447.
A source that preferred that Air France, proprietors of the airline, formally announces the tragic news, however, said family members told close friends that newlyweds; Mr Timothy Ekironyoro and wife, Susan Mofeti perished in the crash. This is the first time news breaks of the presence of Ugandan nationals aboard the Air France carrier flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
By yesterday, the Ugandan embassy in France, that a couple of days ago said no Ugandan was on board the plane, expressed shock over the Ugandan victims.
Mr Stephen Wamono, the administrative attaché at the Ugandan embassy in Paris, but who said he was offering private views, said: "We were just grieving because lives had been lost and saying sorry to our French friends. We did not have any idea that Ugandans were involved.
This information you have provided will help us follow up the matter."
Daily Monitor could not readily crosscheck the latest report with Air France as the company's phone line was jammed, apparently by hundreds of callers making varying inquiries about their loved ones.
News of the tragic end of a marital bliss is particularly unsettling in Uganda where only a handful can afford to fly to exclusive resorts abroad for holiday or marriage celebrations. We could not establish if the couple lived overseas.
It was not also immediately clear why Ugandan diplomats in Paris did not in the first place pick interest to inquire about the possibility of Ugandan nationals being aboard the Air France airbus.
The Times newspaper of London reported online that ships had begun trawling the crash area, spread over a 200-mile stretch as different theories emerged on what could have brought down the plane. Some experts suggested pilot error could have forced the plane to stall and break into pieces in violent storms moments after the plane manufacturer rushed out new guideline to operators on handling A330-200 aircrafts in turbulent weather.
Officials said debris, including airliner seats, believed to be that of the Air France airbus were identified from the air, about 800 miles off the Brazilian coast.
Source: The Monitor Magazine.
Sophist
Platinum Member
- Mar 26, 2009
- 4,484
- 3,400
AIR France revealed today a jet heading for Paris was sabotaged just three days after the crash which killed 228 people.
The pilot of the short-haul flight aborted the take-off from Dusseldorf, Germany, after finding a fault with a smoke detector.
When technicians inspected the plane, they discovered wires to the device in the luggage hold had been severed with a cutter.
Air France have described it as a 'malicious act".
But they later cleared the Airbus A318 jet for take-off because the fault was not enough to ground the plane.
The airline said it had made a complaint to France's air transport police for 'suspected sabotage'.
An Air France spokesman said: "On June 4, a pilot discovered a fault in a smoke detector before heading from Dusseldorf to Paris.
"It was later found that wires had been deliberately sliced in what appears to have been a malicious act, and a complaint has been made to the authorities."
The discovery came just three days after flight AF447 plunged into the Atlantic on route from Rio to Paris.
More than 400 pieces of debris and 50 bodies have been plucked from the ocean 700 miles off the coast of Brazil.
But the black box flight recorders that could hold the key to the disaster are still missing - and will only emit a radio signal to help salvage teams find them for another two weeks.
Paul-Louis Arslanian, head of the French air accident investigation agency BEA, said: "As more debris is discovered, we are becoming more optimistic about what caused the crash.
"But finding the black boxes is crucial to discovering the real cause of this disaster."
Since the crash on June 1, Air France has replaced speed sensors on its entire fleet of long-haul jets, after experts said they could have iced up and given dangerously false readings to cockpit computers in a thunderstorm.
They suspect the failure of the external speed monitors - called pitot tubes - meant the pilot received an inaccurate speed reading, causing the jet to stall or nosedive at 30,000ft.
Advertisement
New pitot tubes were urgently fitted to all of Air France's 34 A330 and A340 long haul jets after pilots unions threatened to stop flying unless urgent changes were made.
SNPL pilots' union spokesman Erick Derivry said: "The whole fleet has now been equipped since the end of last week with the newer Thales' BA sensors.
"Their performance may have been in question, but today it should still be stressed that it is not proven or established that the AA model probes are at the origin of the accident."
Among the 228 victims of the disaster were five Brits, 72 French, 59 Brazilians and 26 Germans, among a total of 32 different nationalities.
Brazilian army Brigadier Ramon Cardoso has said the search operation will continue until at least Friday, though that deadline may be extended.
The pilot of the short-haul flight aborted the take-off from Dusseldorf, Germany, after finding a fault with a smoke detector.
When technicians inspected the plane, they discovered wires to the device in the luggage hold had been severed with a cutter.
Air France have described it as a 'malicious act".
But they later cleared the Airbus A318 jet for take-off because the fault was not enough to ground the plane.
The airline said it had made a complaint to France's air transport police for 'suspected sabotage'.
An Air France spokesman said: "On June 4, a pilot discovered a fault in a smoke detector before heading from Dusseldorf to Paris.
"It was later found that wires had been deliberately sliced in what appears to have been a malicious act, and a complaint has been made to the authorities."
The discovery came just three days after flight AF447 plunged into the Atlantic on route from Rio to Paris.
More than 400 pieces of debris and 50 bodies have been plucked from the ocean 700 miles off the coast of Brazil.
But the black box flight recorders that could hold the key to the disaster are still missing - and will only emit a radio signal to help salvage teams find them for another two weeks.
Paul-Louis Arslanian, head of the French air accident investigation agency BEA, said: "As more debris is discovered, we are becoming more optimistic about what caused the crash.
"But finding the black boxes is crucial to discovering the real cause of this disaster."
Since the crash on June 1, Air France has replaced speed sensors on its entire fleet of long-haul jets, after experts said they could have iced up and given dangerously false readings to cockpit computers in a thunderstorm.
They suspect the failure of the external speed monitors - called pitot tubes - meant the pilot received an inaccurate speed reading, causing the jet to stall or nosedive at 30,000ft.
Advertisement
New pitot tubes were urgently fitted to all of Air France's 34 A330 and A340 long haul jets after pilots unions threatened to stop flying unless urgent changes were made.
SNPL pilots' union spokesman Erick Derivry said: "The whole fleet has now been equipped since the end of last week with the newer Thales' BA sensors.
"Their performance may have been in question, but today it should still be stressed that it is not proven or established that the AA model probes are at the origin of the accident."
Among the 228 victims of the disaster were five Brits, 72 French, 59 Brazilians and 26 Germans, among a total of 32 different nationalities.
Brazilian army Brigadier Ramon Cardoso has said the search operation will continue until at least Friday, though that deadline may be extended.
Mwawado
JF-Expert Member
- Nov 2, 2006
- 993
- 252
Air France crash families to get 1st compensation
By DEBORAH SEWARD – Sunday, 21/June/2009.
PARIS (AP) - Air France focused on aiding families of victims from the crash of Flight 447, offering a first advance on compensation on Friday while investigators worked quietly to solve the mystery of what brought the jet down.
The top European air safety agency said, meanwhile, there was not yet enough evidence to issue a mandatory recall of an external air speed monitor suspected of contributing to the disaster.
Air France chief executive Phillipe Gourgeon told RTL radio that the airline plans to make an advance of about euro17,500 ($24,400) for each of the 228 victims, with no strings attached.
He said it is also may hold a memorial for all the victims of the May 31 crash, Gourgeon said.
Some relatives of French victims have accused Air France of a lack of sympathy and of failing to keep them informed about the crash investigation.
But Gourgeon said the airline has had trouble even reaching some relatives of victims, who came from 32 countries. He said that sometimes the only contact number for a victim is from a mobile phone that was lost in the crash.
Investigators say an automated message sent by the plane minutes before it lost contact indicates it was receiving inconsistent speed readings from external monitors called Pitot tubes.
Air France has replaced the Pitot tubes on all its A330 and A340 aircraft, under pressure from pilots who feared a link to the accident.
But Daniel Hoeltgen, a spokesman for the Cologne, Germany-based European Aviation Safety Agency, said Friday there was not enough evidence to warrant a mandatory order that all airlines replace the part.
"We continue our technical evaluation, and we're looking to the accident investigation for further findings, but there will not be an air worthiness directive today," he said.
A Brazilian naval ship, meanwhile, arrived in the coastal city of Recife with a significant amount of debris and passengers' baggage, adding to hundreds of pieces of debris that experts are studying for clues to the cause of the accident.
Several of the chunks of wreckage were so large that a crane was needed to lift them off the ship.
In a joint statement, Brazil's navy and air force said that search crews recovered only debris on Friday.
Good weather on Friday aided searchers from Brazil, France, the United States and other countries who are methodically scanning the Atlantic for signs of debris or flight recorders from the plane, which experts say may have broken up in the air after flying into thunderstorms.
French-chartered ships are pulling U.S. Navy underwater listening devices through a search area with a radius of 50 miles (80 kilometers), trying to detect the black boxes, now deep at sea, that might have the most detailed description of what happened to the plane.
Associated Press writers Melissa Eddy in Berlin and Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2009
By DEBORAH SEWARD – Sunday, 21/June/2009.
PARIS (AP) - Air France focused on aiding families of victims from the crash of Flight 447, offering a first advance on compensation on Friday while investigators worked quietly to solve the mystery of what brought the jet down.
The top European air safety agency said, meanwhile, there was not yet enough evidence to issue a mandatory recall of an external air speed monitor suspected of contributing to the disaster.
Air France chief executive Phillipe Gourgeon told RTL radio that the airline plans to make an advance of about euro17,500 ($24,400) for each of the 228 victims, with no strings attached.
He said it is also may hold a memorial for all the victims of the May 31 crash, Gourgeon said.
Some relatives of French victims have accused Air France of a lack of sympathy and of failing to keep them informed about the crash investigation.
But Gourgeon said the airline has had trouble even reaching some relatives of victims, who came from 32 countries. He said that sometimes the only contact number for a victim is from a mobile phone that was lost in the crash.
Investigators say an automated message sent by the plane minutes before it lost contact indicates it was receiving inconsistent speed readings from external monitors called Pitot tubes.
Air France has replaced the Pitot tubes on all its A330 and A340 aircraft, under pressure from pilots who feared a link to the accident.
But Daniel Hoeltgen, a spokesman for the Cologne, Germany-based European Aviation Safety Agency, said Friday there was not enough evidence to warrant a mandatory order that all airlines replace the part.
"We continue our technical evaluation, and we're looking to the accident investigation for further findings, but there will not be an air worthiness directive today," he said.
A Brazilian naval ship, meanwhile, arrived in the coastal city of Recife with a significant amount of debris and passengers' baggage, adding to hundreds of pieces of debris that experts are studying for clues to the cause of the accident.
Several of the chunks of wreckage were so large that a crane was needed to lift them off the ship.
In a joint statement, Brazil's navy and air force said that search crews recovered only debris on Friday.
Good weather on Friday aided searchers from Brazil, France, the United States and other countries who are methodically scanning the Atlantic for signs of debris or flight recorders from the plane, which experts say may have broken up in the air after flying into thunderstorms.
French-chartered ships are pulling U.S. Navy underwater listening devices through a search area with a radius of 50 miles (80 kilometers), trying to detect the black boxes, now deep at sea, that might have the most detailed description of what happened to the plane.
Associated Press writers Melissa Eddy in Berlin and Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2009
Ab-Titchaz
JF-Expert Member
- Jan 30, 2008
- 14,631
- 4,225
Kwanza kabisa kama mimi nii hizi familia, I'm not signing anything until
after the investigations are done.Kama makosa ni ya AirFrance the money
will be way more higher than this.How do you compensate a family with
24K only????...Huu ni upuzi ulioje, hata kazi ya kubeba maboksi tunaingiza
zaidi ya hapo per annum.
Hawa mabwana wanajua they dropped the ball somewhere and this is a
way of trying to hoodwink people by these gestures of compassion!
Similar Discussions
-
FLIGHT CANCELED: Passenger notices missing bolts on plane wing- Started by 2 of Amerikaz most wanted
- Replies: 4
-
Kongo DR yaishutumu Rwanda kwa kufanya shambulizi la ‘ndege isiyokuwa na rubani' kwenye uwanja wa ndege- Started by Suley2019
- Replies: 11
-
-
Malaysia: Watu takribani 10 wafariki baada ya ndege kuanguka kwenye barabara kuu
- Started by Suley2019
- Replies: 11