Alain Bouillard, leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident investigation agency BEA, also says life vests found among the wreckage of the plane weren't inflated.
All 228 people aboard the plane were killed when it plunged into the ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
Mr. Bouillard said at a news conference outside Paris on Thursday that the search for the plane's black boxes has been extended by 10 days and will continue through July 10.
A burst of automated messages emitted by the plane before it fell gave rescuers only a vague location to begin their search, which has failed to locate the plane's black boxes. The chances of finding the flight recorders are falling as the signals they emit fade. Without them, the full causes of the tragic accident may never be known.
Lacking the crucial evidence the black boxes contain, the BEA's initial findings are based on the automated messages sent by the plane minutes before it lost contact, and clues from the wreckage and the remains of 51 people that have been recovered by investigators.
One of the automatic messages emitted by the Air France plane indicates it was receiving incorrect speed information from external monitoring instruments, which could destabilize the plane's control systems. Experts have suggested those external instruments might have iced over.
Air France has now replaced the monitors, called Pitot tubes, on all its Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft.
Emergency beacons attached to cockpit voice and data recorders are built to emit strong "pings" for 30 days after a crash before fading away, though experts said they could continue for as long as 45 days.
Fonte: Wall Street Journal
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124654219866085907.html




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