FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil – Air France has told families of passengers on Flight 447 that the jetliner broke apart and they must abandon hope that anyone survived, a grief counselor said Thursday as Brazilian ships neared debris bobbing in the Atlantic.Air France's CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said at a private meeting with families that the plane disintegrated either in the air or when it slammed into the ocean and there were no survivors, according to Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, who was asked by Paris prosecutors to help counsel relatives.The plane, carrying 228 people, disappeared after leaving Rio de Janeiro for Paris on Sunday night. It was Air France's deadliest plane crash and the world's worst commercial air accident since 2001.With the crucial black box voice and data recorders still missing, investigators were relying heavily on the plane's automated messages to help reconstruct what happened as the jet flew through towering thunderstorms.The messages detail a series of failures that end with its systems shutting down, suggesting the plane broke apart in the sky, according to an aviation industry official with knowledge of the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the crash."What is clear is that there was no landing. There's no chance the escape slides came out," said Denoix de Saint-Marc, who heads a victims' association for UTA Flight 772, which Libyan terrorists downed with a suitcase bomb in 1989.Seas were calm Thursday with periodic rain as ships converged on three debris sites to recover wreckage, but "extreme cloudiness" prevented U.S. satellites from helping, said French military spokesman Christophe Prazuck."The clock is ticking on finding debris before they spread out and before they sink or disappear," Prazuck said. "That's the priority now, the next step will be to look for the black boxes."French planes and a U.S. Navy P-3C Orion surveillance plane joined Brazil's Air Force, whose pilots guided Navy ships to debris areas across a search zone of 2,300 square miles (6,000 square kilometers), said Brazil Air Force Gen. Ramon Borges Cardoso. He said collection of debris could begin Thursday. No bodies or body parts were seen.Floating debris spotted so far includes a 23-foot (seven-meter) chunk of plane, an airline seat, an oil slick and several large brown and yellow pieces that Cardoso said probably came from inside the plane.A Navy spokesman denied French media reports Thursday morning that ships had already started recovering debris. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.Brazil's Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said debris had spread more than 140 miles (230 kilometers) apart in currents roughly 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast, where the ocean floor drops as low as 22,950 feet (7,000 meters) below sea level.The Pourquoi Pas, a French sea research vessel carrying manned and unmanned submarines, is heading from the Azores and will be in the search zone by June 12, Prazuck said. The equipment includes the Nautile, a mini-sub used to explore the undersea wreckage of the Titanic, according to French marine institute Ifremer.But the lead French investigator has questioned whether the recorders will ever be found in such deep and rugged underwater terrain.While Brazil leads the search effort, France is in charge of the accident investigation, and has invited the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to help. The U.S. team includes representatives from General Electric Aviation of Cincinnati, Ohio, which made the plane's engines, and Honeywell International Inc. of Morristown, N.J., which made major components of the plane's electronic systems.The mourning continues — more than 500 people packed the historic Candelaria church in the center of Rio de Janeiro Thursday for a Mass for the victims of crash. Some relatives quietly sobbed and others wore sunglasses to hide reddened eyes.Carlos Eduardo Esteves, a 22-year-old law school student, came to remember Air France crew member Lucas Gagliano, a Brazilian who was on his way back home to France after attending his father's funeral.His eyes tearing up, Esteves said they had been friends for years."This is a form of saying goodbye to him. I feel so much loss, the nation has lost so much."The pilot sent a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time Sunday saying he was flying through an area of black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning. The automated messages that followed suggest the plane broke apart in the sky, according to the aviation industry official.At 11:10 pm, a cascade of problems began: the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems.Three minutes after that, systems for monitoring air speed, altitude and direction failed, and then controls over the main flight computer and wing spoilers failed as well.The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., signaled loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure — catastrophic events in a plane that was likely already plunging toward the ocean.Patrick Smith, a U.S. airline pilot and aviation analyst, said the failures could have begun with a loss of electrical power, possibly as the result of an extremely strong lightning bolt."What jumps out at me is the reported failure of both the primary and standby instruments," Smith said. "From that point the plane basically becomes unflyable.""If they lost control and started spiraling down into a storm cell, the plane would begin disintegrating, the engines and wings would start coming off, the cabin would begin falling apart," he said.The pilot of a Spanish airliner flying nearby at the time reported seeing a bright flash of white light plunging to the ocean, said Angel del Rio, spokesman for the Spanish airline Air Comet."Suddenly, off in the distance, we observed a strong and bright flash of white light that took a downward and vertical trajectory and vanished in six seconds," the pilot wrote in his report, del Rio told the AP.The pilot of the Spanish plane, en route from Lima, Peru to Madrid, said he heard no emergency calls.France's defense minister and the Pentagon have said there were no signs that terrorism was involved, and Jobim, the Brazilian defense minister, said "that possibility hasn't even been considered."___Keller reported from Paris. Associated Press writers Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro; Alan Clendenning in Sao Paulo; Marco Sibaja in Brasilia; Slobodan Lekic in Brussels; Daniel Woolls in Madrid; and Angela Charlton and Emma Vandore in Paris also contributed to this report.(This version CORRECTS reference to UTA Flight 772 bombing and CORRECTS media reports to Thursday sted Wednesday) )news.yahoo.com
RECIFE, Brazil – Searchers found two bodies and a briefcase containing a ticket for Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean close to where the jetliner is believed to have crashed, a Brazil military official said Saturday.
The French agency investigating the disaster, meanwhile, said the airspeed instruments on Flight 447 were not replaced as the maker recommended before the plane crashed in turbulent weather nearly a week ago.
The French accident investigation agency, BEA, found the doomed plane received inconsistent airspeed readings by different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm on its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people aboard.
Airbus had recommended to all its airline customers that they replace speed-measuring instruments known as Pitot tubes on the A330, the model used for Flight 447, said Paul-Louis Arslanian, the head of the agency.
"They hadn't yet been replaced" on the plane that crashed, said Alain Bouillard, head of the French investigation. Air France declined immediate comment.
Arslanian of the BEA cautioned that it is too early to draw conclusions about the role of Pitot tubes in the crash, saying that "it does not mean that without replacing the Pitots that the A330 was dangerous."
He told a news conference at the agency's headquarters, near Paris that the crash of Flight 447 also does not mean similar plane models are unsafe, adding that he told family members not to worry about flying.
Airbus had made the recommendation for "a number of reasons," he said.
The two male bodies were recovered Saturday morning about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of where Air Flight 447 emitted its last signals — roughly 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.
Brazilian Air force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said an Air France ticket was found inside a leather briefcase.
"It was confirmed with Air France that the ticket number corresponds to a passenger on the flight," he said.
Brazilian authorities refused to comment on how the discovery of the bodies may affect the search for crucial black box flight recorders that could tell investigators why the jet crashed.
The investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and leading computers to set the plane's speed too fast or slow — a potentially deadly mistake in severe turbulence.
Pitot tubes, protruding from the wing or fuselage of a plane, feed airspeed sensors and are heated to prevent icing. A blocked or malfunctioning Pitot tube could cause an airspeed sensor to work incorrectly and cause the computer controlling the plane to accelerate or decelerate in a potentially dangerous fashion.
Air France has already replaced the Pitots on another Airbus model, the 320, after its pilots reported similar problems with the instrument, according to an Air France air safety report filed by pilots in January and obtained by The Associated Press.
The report followed an incident in which an Air France flight from Tokyo to Paris reported problems with its airspeed indicators similar to those believed to have been encountered by Flight 447. In that case, the Pitot tubes were found to have been blocked by ice.
"Following similar problems frequently encountered on the A320 fleet, preventative actions have already been decided and applied," the safety report says. The Pitots on all Air France's A320s were retrofitted with new Pitots "less susceptible to these weather conditions."
The same report says Air France decided to increase the inspection frequency for its A330 and A340 jets' Pitot tubes, but that it had been waiting for a recommendation from Airbus before installing new Pitots.
As they try to locate the wreckage, investigators are relying on 24 messages the plane sent automatically during the last minutes of the flight.
The signals show the plane's autopilot was not on, officials said, but it was not clear if the autopilot had been switched off by the pilots or had stopped working because it received conflicting airspeed readings.
The flight disappeared nearly four hours after takeoff, killing all on board. It was Air France's deadliest plane crash and the world's worst commercial air accident since 2001.
The head of France's weather forecasting agency, Alain Ratier, said weather conditions at the time of the flight were not exceptional for the time of the year and region, which is known for violent stormy weather.
On Thursday, European plane maker Airbus sent an advisory to all operators of the A330 reminding them of how to handle the plane in conditions similar to those experienced by Flight 447.
Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that advisory and the Air France memo about replacing flight-speed instruments "certainly raises questions about whether the Pitot tubes, which are critical to the pilot's understanding of what's going on, were operating effectively."
Arslanian said it is vital to locate a small beacon called a "pinger" that should be attached to the cockpit voice and data recorders, now presumed to be deep in the Atlantic.
"We have no guarantee that the pinger is attached to the recorders," he said.
Holding up a pinger in the palm of his hand, he said: "This is what we are looking for in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."
Currents could have scattered debris far along the ocean floor, he said.
President Barack Obama said at a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy Saturday that the United States had authorized all of the U.S. government's resources to help investigate the crash.
Arslanian said U.S. forces have lent the inquiry acoustic systems, which will be fitted to two naval vessels. That is in addition to France's Emeraude submarine and the high-tech equipment being send to the region by French marine research institute Ifremer.
France's submarine, to arrive next week, will try to detect signals from the black boxes, said military spokesman Christophe Prazuck.
___
AP Writers Patrick McGroarty in Berlin and Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.
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The French agency investigating the disaster, meanwhile, said the airspeed instruments on Flight 447 were not replaced as the maker recommended before the plane crashed in turbulent weather nearly a week ago.
The French accident investigation agency, BEA, found the doomed plane received inconsistent airspeed readings by different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm on its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people aboard.
Airbus had recommended to all its airline customers that they replace speed-measuring instruments known as Pitot tubes on the A330, the model used for Flight 447, said Paul-Louis Arslanian, the head of the agency.
"They hadn't yet been replaced" on the plane that crashed, said Alain Bouillard, head of the French investigation. Air France declined immediate comment.
Arslanian of the BEA cautioned that it is too early to draw conclusions about the role of Pitot tubes in the crash, saying that "it does not mean that without replacing the Pitots that the A330 was dangerous."
He told a news conference at the agency's headquarters, near Paris that the crash of Flight 447 also does not mean similar plane models are unsafe, adding that he told family members not to worry about flying.
Airbus had made the recommendation for "a number of reasons," he said.
The two male bodies were recovered Saturday morning about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of where Air Flight 447 emitted its last signals — roughly 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.
Brazilian Air force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said an Air France ticket was found inside a leather briefcase.
"It was confirmed with Air France that the ticket number corresponds to a passenger on the flight," he said.
Brazilian authorities refused to comment on how the discovery of the bodies may affect the search for crucial black box flight recorders that could tell investigators why the jet crashed.
The investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and leading computers to set the plane's speed too fast or slow — a potentially deadly mistake in severe turbulence.
Pitot tubes, protruding from the wing or fuselage of a plane, feed airspeed sensors and are heated to prevent icing. A blocked or malfunctioning Pitot tube could cause an airspeed sensor to work incorrectly and cause the computer controlling the plane to accelerate or decelerate in a potentially dangerous fashion.
Air France has already replaced the Pitots on another Airbus model, the 320, after its pilots reported similar problems with the instrument, according to an Air France air safety report filed by pilots in January and obtained by The Associated Press.
The report followed an incident in which an Air France flight from Tokyo to Paris reported problems with its airspeed indicators similar to those believed to have been encountered by Flight 447. In that case, the Pitot tubes were found to have been blocked by ice.
"Following similar problems frequently encountered on the A320 fleet, preventative actions have already been decided and applied," the safety report says. The Pitots on all Air France's A320s were retrofitted with new Pitots "less susceptible to these weather conditions."
The same report says Air France decided to increase the inspection frequency for its A330 and A340 jets' Pitot tubes, but that it had been waiting for a recommendation from Airbus before installing new Pitots.
As they try to locate the wreckage, investigators are relying on 24 messages the plane sent automatically during the last minutes of the flight.
The signals show the plane's autopilot was not on, officials said, but it was not clear if the autopilot had been switched off by the pilots or had stopped working because it received conflicting airspeed readings.
The flight disappeared nearly four hours after takeoff, killing all on board. It was Air France's deadliest plane crash and the world's worst commercial air accident since 2001.
The head of France's weather forecasting agency, Alain Ratier, said weather conditions at the time of the flight were not exceptional for the time of the year and region, which is known for violent stormy weather.
On Thursday, European plane maker Airbus sent an advisory to all operators of the A330 reminding them of how to handle the plane in conditions similar to those experienced by Flight 447.
Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that advisory and the Air France memo about replacing flight-speed instruments "certainly raises questions about whether the Pitot tubes, which are critical to the pilot's understanding of what's going on, were operating effectively."
Arslanian said it is vital to locate a small beacon called a "pinger" that should be attached to the cockpit voice and data recorders, now presumed to be deep in the Atlantic.
"We have no guarantee that the pinger is attached to the recorders," he said.
Holding up a pinger in the palm of his hand, he said: "This is what we are looking for in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."
Currents could have scattered debris far along the ocean floor, he said.
President Barack Obama said at a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy Saturday that the United States had authorized all of the U.S. government's resources to help investigate the crash.
Arslanian said U.S. forces have lent the inquiry acoustic systems, which will be fitted to two naval vessels. That is in addition to France's Emeraude submarine and the high-tech equipment being send to the region by French marine research institute Ifremer.
France's submarine, to arrive next week, will try to detect signals from the black boxes, said military spokesman Christophe Prazuck.
___
AP Writers Patrick McGroarty in Berlin and Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.