Sub Hunts For Flt. 447 Black Boxes

U.S. Assisting French Vessel; Crash Investigation Remains Focused On Speed-Monitoring "Pitot Tubes"

(AP)  A French nuclear submarine reached the crash zone of Air France Flight 447 on Wednesday to join the search for the plane's black boxes, which may be the key to determining what brought the Airbus down in the sea off Brazil with 228 people on board.

The attack sub Emeraude plans to trawl 13 square miles a day, using sonar to try to pick up the boxes' acoustic beacons or "pingers," French armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck said Wednesday.

It's a race against time, because the beacons will start to fade 30 days after the May 31 crash. If the boxes are spotted, the Emeraude will work with the mini-sub Nautile, which can descend to the ocean floor and was a key part of the search for the Titanic.

"There are big uncertainties about the accident site, the ocean floor is rugged ... so it's going to be very difficult," Prazuck told France-Info radio. "It's going to be very complicated and we're going to need a lot of luck" to find the black boxes.

The French submarines will be aided by two U.S. underwater audio devices capable of picking up signals even at a depth of 20,000 feet.

U.S. Air Force Col. Willie Berges, commander of the American military forces supporting the search operation, said the first of two U.S. towed pinger locators is being loaded onto a search ship Wednesday in the northern city of Natal.

He said the Dutch ship contracted by French investigators will head out tomorrow and arrive in the search area by Sunday.

The listening devices will be slowly towed in a grid pattern while a 10-person team aboard the vessel watches monitors receiving signals from the locators.

Berges said the second ship is expected to arrive at the port city this weekend.

A total of 41 bodies have been recovered so far from the scene of the crash, about 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast. The remains are being flown daily to Recife, where investigators hope to identify them and uncover clues into the crash based on the victims' injuries.

Prazuck told Associated Press Television News that a French frigate, the Ventose, had already gathered 130 pieces of debris, big and small. The debris was being cleaned of salt and was to be taken to an undisclosed location for further analysis, he said.

Without key information from the Airbus A330's missing data recorders, investigators have focused on the possibility that external speed monitors - Pitot tubes - iced over and gave false readings to the plane's computers as it flew into thunderstorms.

Airlines around the world have begun replacing Pitot tubes on their aircraft. And the European Aviation Safety Agency, responsible for the certification of Airbus planes, said it was "analyzing data with a view to issuing mandatory corrective action" following reports about the possible malfunctioning of the Pitot tubes. But it also said the A330 and other Airbus aircraft are safe to operate.

The Pitot monitors had not yet been replaced on the A330 that was destroyed en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

The agency issued a precautionary bulletin Tuesday reminding operators of the correct procedure if speed indications are unreliable or missing.

"We are aware of issues with this in the past, but at no time were they classified as safety-critical," said Daniel Hoeltgen, the agency's spokesman.

An important part of the investigation relies on a burst of 24 automatic messages the plane sent during the last minutes of the flight. The signals showed 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 due to conflicting airspeed readings.

The L-shaped metal Pitot tubes jut from the wing or fuselage of a plane, and are usually heated to prevent icing. The pressure of air entering the tubes lets internal sensors measure the speed and angle of flight. A malfunctioning tube could mislead computers controlling the plane to dangerously accelerate or decelerate.

Air France said it began replacing the tubes on its A330 and A340 jets in May after pilots reported several incidents of icing leading to a loss of airspeed data, and that it had already replaced the Pitots in smaller A320 jets after similar problems were reported.

"What we know is that other planes that have experienced incorrect airspeed indications have had the same Pitots. And airplanes with the new Pitot tubes have never had such problems," said Air France pilot Eric Derivry, a spokesman for the SNPL pilots union.

On Tuesday, the airline assured its pilots that none of its A330s or A340s would fly without at least two of the new instruments, and that all Air France A330s and A340s will have all three Pitots replaced by July. Brazil's air force said it is replacing them for the president's jet.

About 70 airlines operate some 600 A330 planes similar to the doomed Air France jet, and the Pitots being replaced are made by France's Thales Group.

Both French and U.S. officials have said they have seen no evidence terrorism was involved in the crash and a spokesman for Brazil's intelligence agency also said Wednesday he had no information about any terrorist connections to Flight 447. He spoke on condition of anonymity, per department rules.

From Germany, more confirmation came Wednesday about rough weather over the Atlantic along the same route as the Air France crash. Lufthansa confirmed a report in Stern magazine that a passenger was injured when a Sao Paulo-to-Frankfurt flight hit turbulence off the Brazilian coast two days before the Air France crash.

"One can generally expect turbulence on this route," Lufthansa spokesman Michael Lamberty said Wednesday.

In an apparently unrelated incident, a smaller model Airbus A320 experienced undisclosed engine trouble shortly after taking off Wednesday from the Canary Islands and was forced to make an emergency landing, Spain's national airport authority AENA said.

The Spanish Iberworld airliner was headed from Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria to Oslo, Norway, AENA spokeswoman Karen Martel said from the island. No one was hurt and the plane was in the air about 10 minutes, she told The Associated Press.

The passengers were taken off the plane and the company planned to put them on a different one bound for Oslo at midday, Martel said.

[lsk2141]

It is now 3 weeks after the crash of flight 447. The search and reascue team is still not yet recover the black box. In my opinion the time taken is a bit too long. Airbus should seriously look into ways of imporoving the signal transmission strength from the black box when it in in deep water and other difficult location on earth..
The aircraft must have a good GPS system to report the location of the plane and black box when the crash happen whether it is in deep ocean , dense forest or remote desert. In less fatal cases such as plane making an emergency landing on some remote area or on the sea, the shorten time taken to locate the plane could minimise the casualty of people onboard. The aircraft ************ should look into this area of weakness and make the necesaary improvement of the GPS equipment.

[pensacola8-2009]

At higher altitude in thinner colder air, engines are more vulnerable to foreign object damage, but up there - only precipitation can be encountered. A level 4 or level 5 thunderstorm can certainly produce such precipitation.

Even military jets flying over 40,000 feet have encountered the precipitation of a level 4 or level 5 thunderstorm and flamed out. One military pilot who ejected during one after high altitude flameout found himself almost drowning in precipitation - water - while floating in violent winds as the storm carried him across several states before the storm disipated and permited him to land with his parachute.

[Cyber998]

Kanaduh_eh, that's simply not true. Numerous jets have had their skins punctured mid-flight, they didn't "vaporize in seconds".

Only a few months ago, a Quantus jet suffered an oxygen tank explosion. The explosion tore a large chunck out of the fuselage. Do a search for photos, they are pretty dramatic. The plane landed OK. A few years ago a Boeing jet's cargo bay door ripped off mid-flight, again the aircraft managed to make an emergency landing (luckily it wasn't halfway over the Atlantic).

Obviously a big enough explosion can make recovery by pilot impossible and cause a crash or even mid-air break up but it would have to be an absolutely immense explosion to "vaporize" an aircraft. Not something you could fit into a suitcase or luggage. It would be down to the bomb, nothing to do with speed.

[Cyber998]

"First off I never knew France had a Submarine (why?) ,I just hope when they give up looking for it they don't abandon their Sub. ! (Just jokeing ) I hope they find the box and become world wide hero's.
Posted by albert571 "

Um, the French have 10 modern nuclear attack subs (and a host of minor & older ones) and not to mention one of the world's newest (and arguable most modern) aircraft carriers. It shouldn't be surprising, since they are the world's 3rd highest spenders on defense and have one of the most formidable militaries around.

Plus, as they haven't had a crazed loony as president for the last 8 years, they haven't been wasting most their military's budget blowing up huge areas of desert.

>According to the GPS tracking system my street is 3/4 of a mile from where it actually is and that is not the only example I know of. Think of all those GPS guided bombs in Iraq that blew up the wrong buildings.

The GPS system, like every technology is over hyped by the people who are marketing it. The technology may be good, but it is not perfect. <

There are 3 different GPS signals being transmitted from satellites. The GPS you're complaining about is used by the general public and it's the least accurate because of built in interference. The GPS airplanes use is much more precise. The GPS the military uses is extremely precise. But like you said, the technology isn't perfect but it's one of the few things the gov't has created and allows the general public to use free of charge. I have several GPS's and have never had one display a location 1/2 mile off so that's an anomoly. And if your GPS isn't doing what you like, then try using a map.

[McHineguy]

How is it that all these bodies are floating around in the South Atlantic when all the passengers were, supposedly, strapped into their seats by their seatbelts? Why are the reporters not asking this question?
Posted by tiktin at 3:32 PM : Jun 10, 2009

Its not likely that these are complete or whole bodies. After being in the water a few days the bodies swell and the bones break so they can slip free of the seat belts.

[McHineguy]

In this day and age of powerful computers and GPS tracking it seems like these black boxes should be easy to find no matter where they are.
Posted by GeorgeWHoover at 6:54 PM : Jun 10, 2009

First GPS does not work under the sea. Second, even if it did, the black boxes cant transmit data when they are submerged. All they can do is send out sonar "pings" as a locator beacon. Sound travels well under water but there are many other sounds also under water. One of the biggest sounds is that of your own engine as you troll around listening.

[spiritwalk]

In this day and age of powerful computers and GPS tracking it seems like these black boxes should be easy to find no matter where they are.
Posted by GeorgeWHoover at 6:54 PM : Jun 10, 2009
<

According to the GPS tracking system my street is 3/4 of a mile from where it actually is and that is not the only example I know of. Think of all those GPS guided bombs in Iraq that blew up the wrong buildings.

The GPS system, like every technology is over hyped by the people who are marketing it. The technology may be good, but it is not perfect.

[albert571]

First off I never knew France had a Submarine (why?) ,I just hope when they give up looking for it they don't abandon their Sub. ! (Just jokeing ) I hope they find the box and become world wide hero's.

[Slrman]

As usual, the conspiracy nuts are out in force. If someone stubs their toe on a sidewalk, it has to be a right (or left) wing conspiracy. Let's not forget the space aliens, too. Then there's god's wrath because gays have certainly flown on that plane before even if there weren't any on this flight.

[CB_Brooklyn]

Excerpt from:
http://worldreports.org/news/217_war_of_attrition_against_the_u.s._crime_cadres

By Christopher Story FRSA, Editor and Publisher, International Currency Review, World Reports Limited, London and New York.



POSSIBLE RATIONALE FOR AIR FRANCE 447 DISASTER
Initially, French authorities reacting to the loss of Air France 447 on Monday 1st June with 228 people on board, suggested that the aircraft had broken up in the course of a terrible electrical storm. Later, they conspicuously refrained from ruling out sabotage.

By the weekend of 6-7 June, it was being reported that the huge oil slick that had been identified earlier was now thought not to have been associated with the disappearance of the Airbus A330. If an explosion took place, there would be no oil slick.

On the other hand, since the oil in question was diesel oil, reports that a diesel-powered submarine may have launched a missile at the aircraft, as happened with TWA-800, when an Iranian submarine was suspected, are not to be dismissed ? especially as France despatched a nuclear submarine to the area ? we speculate, to search for the submarine in order to establish whether it was German or Iranian. The Iranians would have a motive, as France under President Sarkozy has ceased supply Iran with plutonium for its nuclear programme.

If the Iranians have demonstrated that they can destroy a French airliner, they could do so again. On the other hand, if the submarine is one of the German refurbished diesel fleet, the immediate consequences for the already (see previous reports) fractured Franco-German alliance, based on the timeless Treaty of the Elysée of January 1963, could be momentous.

Tensions between France, the United States, Germany and Britain are at an all-time high due to the chaotic and hideous struggle over the money, which has progressively eroded and destabilised all dimensions of these powers? bilateral and broader relationships.

In the absence of an official list of passengers, we were able during the week ending 5th June to establish that passengers included Eric Heine, a senior executive of the German steel corporation Thyssen-Krupp, several executives from Michelin?s South American operations, and a 25-year-old relative of Portuguese Royalty.

On 2nd June it emerged that Michael ?Butch? Harris, a top geologist with Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corporation and his wife Anne, had been on the aircraft. A spokesman for the company, Chip Minty, confirmed that Harris was a geologist working out of Devon?s Rio de Janeiro office. The late Mr Harris had moved to Brazil from Houston in July 2008, according to Mrs Harris?s sister, Mary Riley, of Lafayette, LA, in an interview with the local newspaper, The Advertiser. The couple, married for 16 years, were originally from Lafayette and had lived there until 2004.

Mr Harris was a Clemson graduate and a brilliant geologist. The ?Jack 2? well drilled in the Walker Ridge area of the Gulf of Mexico 175 miles off the coast of Louisiana, is located in about 7,000 ft. of water. Chevron, which has a 50% stake in the oilfield, has two partners for this project, both of which have a 25% stake: Statoil ASA (Norway), and Devon Energy Corporation of Oklahoma City.

Fadel Gheit, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co., said on 4th June that ?relative to its size, Devon has one of the greatest exposures to the deepwater Gulf of Mexico?. Devon?s shares rose by about 15% on the New York Stock Exchange following news about the ?Jack 2? oilfield.

Before moving to Brazil, Michael ?Butch? Harris and his wife Anne lived in the Woodlands area of Houston, which ?just happens? to be where George Herbert Walker Bush lives.

We ?speculate? that Mr Harris was en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris where he was to realise a brief from Bush Sr. to leverage Devon Energy Corporation's 25% stake in the ?Jack 2? oilfield with the corrupt ?Kissinger-Bush? bank, Paribas, for an enormous credit line, enabling the desperate Bush Crime Family to ?start over? with a pile of cash for the usual leveraging and hypothecation purposes. We further ?speculate? that Air France 447 was sabotaged, to close off this option.

That George Bush Sr. would have no compunction in arranging for one of his associates to run the risk of being murdered in mid-air given that the whole world (with the sole exception of the crime network?s remaining cornered assets) is intent upon removing the Bush Crime Family from the chessboard, goes without saying.

The sole motivation of this criminal group operating outside and within the US Intelligence Power, the White House and the Treasury, has all along been to retain control of the levers of Fraudulent Finance at all costs, without regard for collateral damage. Given the unconscionable level of their arrogance, these people never expected to encounter any opposition to their activities, and have accordingly received the overdue shock of their lives.

[tiktin]

How is it that all these bodies are floating around in the South Atlantic when all the passengers were, supposedly, strapped into their seats by their seatbelts? Why are the reporters not asking this question?

[azperry]

How come I need to get my news from Sky Net and/or London time to get accurate information on the terriost connection to this flight? Why do you always seem to put some spin on your news or down play the facts... You news channel sticks and people are catching on and soon won't tune in - you losers

[Oregon_State_OSU]

I hope they find the black boxes.