IDs Of Victims Could Prove Jet Broke Up

Investigators Will Calculate How Far Currents Carried Bodies, Their Distance From Air France Debris Field

(CBS/ AP)  Brazilian authorities started to identify bodies recovered from a downed Air France jet on Thursday, and the names of victims found 53 miles apart in the ocean could help prove whether the jet broke up in the air.

A French ship also reported sighting more bodies, but here was no immediate information on how many were spotted or when they might be picked up, said Brazilian Air Force. Gen. Ramon Cardoso.

Rainstorms hit parts of the search area and bodies and debris were dispersed by currents, and Cardoso said Brazil's aerial search was hindered by reduced visibility.

"It is becoming more and more difficult to find and recover bodies," he said 11 days after the May 31 crash hundreds of miles off Brazil's coast. "And the chances of recovering the bodies of all the passengers of the Air France flight are very remote."

Peter Goelz, a former managing director of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said the evidence uncovered so far points to at least a partial midair break up of the Airbus A330 and that the 41 bodies found are among the best evidence investigators now have.

Coroners in the northeastern coastal city of Recife began examining 16 bodies on Thursday, hoping to identify through DNA and photos. The rest of the bodies are to be flown in Friday from the Brazilian islands of Fernando de Noronha, where they are being taken after being loaded onto search ships.

Flight 447 was packed with 228 people and because of that, passengers were likely in their assigned seats as the jet flew into heavy storms, Goelz said.

"If the victims found in one part of the ocean mostly came from one part of the plane, and the victims in the other area came from another part of the plane, that is really telling you something," he said - perhaps what parts of the plane had broken up in the air.

Identification of injuries suffered by passengers also will help investigators.

"They are important pieces to the puzzle," said Tom Corrigan, a chief investigator into the crash of TWA Flight 800, which exploded over the Atlantic shortly after leaving John F. Kennedy Airport in 1996.

"They have to be examined thoroughly," Corrigan told CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.

Goelz noted that the pattern of injuries found on passengers of TWA Flight 800 - which went down in 1996 off the coast of Long Island, New York - helped investigators confirm that the nose broke off and fire blew back from the fuel tank.

"We will know much more, I think, after the autopsies allow us to better understand the technical causes of death and when the debris have been examined by experts," Air France chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told reporters on Thursday.

Goelz said that damage to the larger pieces of debris fished from the ocean can tell experts where the pieces of the plane broke apart and perhaps why - by forces in air or by impact with the sea.

A Brazilian ship unloaded 37 pieces of the plane Thursday for storage at an Air Force base in the northern port city of Natal until French investigators arrive and decide where they should be sent, said Brazilian Vice Adm. Edison Lawrence.

Other pieces are still aboard the ships searching for human remains and debris, and Brazil's military will decide next week whether to halt the search for bodies on June 19.

The first bodies found Saturday six days after the crash were recovered about 53 miles from bodies discovered on Tuesday, Brazil's military said.

Investigators will calculate how far currents averaging about 5 mph had carried the bodies before they were picked up, said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board.

"Finding those bodies that far away or that separate from the debris field is a very important clue, and could indicate a midair breakup or at least that the cabin was opened up," he said.

Yet more information could come from the plane's flight recorders. Sonar from the French nuclear submarine Emeraude are now ranging across 13 square miles (35 square kilometers) of ocean bottom a day searching for them.

U.S. military locating equipment capable of picking up signals 20,000 feet deep will arrive at the scene within days.

Finding the boxes in the deep waters presents a formidable task; they might have come to rest amid jagged underwater mountains and their acoustic signals will start to fade in about three weeks.

If a box is located, the French can send the remote-controlled mini-sub Nautile to recover it. The Nautile had a key role in the search for the wreckage of the Titanic.

So far, investigators have focused on the possibility that external speed monitors - Pitot tubes - iced over and gave false readings to the plane's computers. The plane emitted messages just before crashing that it was experiencing electrical failures and reduced cabin pressure.

Airbus said it sent an advisory to airlines June 8 analyzing the automatic messages transmitted by Flight 447.

One of the messages showed a change of cabin pressure equal to an altitude change of more than 1,800 feet (548 meters) per minute, said Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath. But he said Airbus does not have enough information to interpret this yet.

Replacement Pitot tubes for jet models of the same type as the crashed plane arrived just three days before the fatal accident, Gourgeon said.

Air France ordered the replacements on April 27 after pilots noted a loss of airspeed data in flights on Airbus A330 and A340 models, he said.

The incidents were "not catastrophic" and planes with the old Pitots are considered airworthy, Gourgeon said.

"Because I am not convinced that the sensors are the cause of the accident, and we have said it, I had no need to issue a press release the day after the accident," Gourgeon added, responding to criticism that there was a lack of transparency.

French and U.S. officials have said there were no signs of terrorism, and Brazil's defense minister said the possibility wasn't considered. But France says it has not been ruled out.

The plane's manufacturer, Airbus, encountered new problems Thursday when an A330 carrying 203 people made an emergency landing in Guam after an electrical problem sparked a small cockpit fire, Jetstar airline reported.

A pilot put out the fire with an extinguisher and no one was injured, said Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway.

[anti-global2]

Here is a fact that news agencies don't seem to want to touch on. THere were two men on board who were heavily involved in investigating international arms and drug smuggling. They were currnetly doing an investigation in S. America.
When I heard this I instantly thought of Iran Contra, and the little know fact that investigators like these guys almost brought down a whole administration and alot of the CIA with it.
Also Sky news put out a little report saying two passengers were islamic extremists but did not name them. If they are referring to Mr. Dryfus and Mr. Dryer they will be proven wrong. There is nothing out there linking these two to extremists. If it is them they are talking about it will just raise more suspicions, since Sky News out of England often works with U.S. intelligence.
Also i am not an engineer, but does it make sense that it could take 4 minutes for a plane to fall apart? Also they are saying, like in the case of flight 800, that the debris proves there were no explosives. Will they keep all of the evidence locked away and secret like they have been doing with flight 800? That just seems like they are hiding something.

[pensacola8-2009]

All too often carbon composite aircraft and fly-by wire technologies are assumed to contributing factors by contributors. Here are two points to consider:

Carbon composite technology has been used safely in helicopter blades, US fighters and military transport for decades.

The F16 was designed with fly-by-wire controls. The newest fighters are also using this technology. If it can operate in the extreme envelopes of fighter aircraft, it can also operate just as well in passenger jet.
Posted by veils-2009 at 1:33 AM : Jun 12, 2009



It's about time I read something intelligent and factual !! Thanks for doubling the average IQ on this comment stream with your facts.

[pensacola8-2009]

Carbon Composite Vs. Aluminum Alloy

Take any aluminum can and compare the crushing stregnth differences between it when it is full and empty.

Take any common chicken egg. Try to squeeze one in the palm of your hand. Compare the crushing effort between one that is full and empty.

The aluminum can that this full will still flex a little and reveal a slight dent when released.

The chicken egg does not flex or dent.

The attraction of carbon composite is comparable to a chicken egg under pressure. Baby chics depend on those things for around a month, until they magically hatch and egress theirselves with their fragile little bodies....a far cry from a human hand and arm.

[pensacola8-2009]

There are many reasons that can account for the 40 variations in the velocity reports. They are non-issues.

Indicated airspeed, true airspeed, groundspeed, and machspeed, all come from a speed relationship defined with different variables. At 40,0000 feet in sub-zero air temps and low barometric pressure environments, zipping along at 395 knots, a 40 knot variation - 10 percent - is within limits for flight systems management, but for not for navigation. Flight systems are there to help pilots manage airframe and engine performance. Different altitudes offer different degrees of efficiency and accuracy. The 40 knot variation is a non-issue. It compares to some of the elaborate readings of a common computer found in most modern automobiles that monitor a variety of sensors for fuel efficiency and emmisions, which pass un-noticed by the drivers. Computers compensate in realtime, far more accurately than drivers and pilots.

If you could watch your own automobile OBDII computer with a simple OBDII Code Reader monitor bought at a discount tool store and compare live readings of the engine from flat hiway driving to hilly driving, or even a climb up the mountains, you could see that variations exceeding 10 percent are far too common and considered acceptable.

The 40 knot speed variation on the website is simply paparozzi drama hype.

[bhuddaflii]

i bet u still believe that some crazy muslims from saudi arabia pulled off 911 with boxcutters right? lol!! while NORAD stood down for 1.5 hours!! lol!! Operation VIGILIANT GUARDIAN was being conducted (with cheney as the overseer) that same morning. mission? terrorists crashing planes into buildings!! gtfoh!! what about the pentagon terror drill oversaw by rumsfeld, october 2000? mission? planes crashing into the pentagon!! if they can stage all of this, kill innocent americans, brainwash them in to thinking "muslims" are out to get us... well lmao!!! heck, you'll believe anything say!!!

oh yah, and let's not forget the many gov't officials that sacrificed their career to come forward to tell us that twa 800 was shot down (although by accident) by our OWN military!!

but the hypnotized americans went for the mechanical error crap, too...

i blame it on the public education system indoctrination.

poor americans. all hope is lost..............................................

[pensacola8-2009]

Finding bodies 53 miles apart doesn't offer proof that an aircraft broke up in the air.

First of all, they weren't found at the same time, meaning drift time/distances between those bodies could have separated as currents moved them.

Second, a 5 mph current drift was noted and a simple math equation can explain that a 10 hour and 40 minute delay between location of one body and the other could have occured. 53 divided by 5 equals 10.6.

It is easy for "Hollywood" seasoned imaginations to fill in voids with the most wild beliefs possible to deal and cope with drama and events that seem to exist outside the boundaries of our own imaginations.

[bhuddaflii]

look i hope these govt's get their lies straight, cuz we the people ain't buying it!!! seriously. before they found anything, they ruled out terrorism. strange. when the tail and a few bodies were found, they magically located two pax who were on a muslim jihad terror list. yah right. now they are back on the in air break up. as an ex crew member, i POSITIVE there is a cover up and this thing EXPLODED just like a boat load of professionals and experts have speculated all along. and another thing; why do we not hear about the TONS of reports from other pilots ON THE SAME flight path around the SAME time saying THERE WAS NO WEATHER occurring at the time to the extent its being trumped up here. come on folks. let's use critical thinking skills. we know all the gov't does is lie lie lie and cover up cover up cover up!!! geesh!

[zonkzilla]

You mean someone is actually not convinced the plane broke up in the air? That's hard to believe.
It's called physics, and based on the pattern of the wreckage and 13 messages of data from the on board diagnostic system before the plane crashed there is absolutely no doubt that the plane broke up in the air.
Actually if you read the article you will see the headline was deliberately misleading.
What the story says is that investigators may be able to determine how the plane broke up and how much it broke up in flight.
Another misleading headline.

[veils-2009]

All too often carbon composite aircraft and fly-by wire technologies are assumed to contributing factors by contributors. Here are two points to consider:

Carbon composite technology has been used safely in helicopter blades, US fighters and military transport for decades.

The F16 was designed with fly-by-wire controls. The newest fighters are also using this technology. If it can operate in the extreme envelopes of fighter aircraft, it can also operate just as well in passenger jet.

[veils-2009]

These airlines are all equipped with GPS. One of the GPS function is to determine/display speed. I have personally compared a inexpensive handheld unit to the speed indicator in various aircraft and found the GPS reading to be essentially right on the money with the air speed indicators. The aircrew and aircraft computers had a reliable speed indicator even though supposedly their pitot tubes froze. It is supposed to be an automatic reaction for a pilot to turn on pitot heat if approaching or flying in storm cloud conditions. Where I'm going with this is the aircraft breakup is most likely not due its instrumentations inability to determine the aircraft airspeed accurately.

[veils-2009]

Shouldn't have all the passengers have been strapped into their seats in such violent weather? If so one would expect that these passengers would have been ejected from the broken aircraft in their assigned seats. The cushions of the seats are also flotation devices.

It would have had to have been an extremely violent event, perhaps explosive in nature to separate the passengers from their seats.

[joetheplumer]

France with the help of the media of misinformation (Foxnews of course) are trying to spread idea of potential terrorist act. This is not the Bush era where everything were blamed on terror. Airbus should come clean and not try some hypothesis that no one will accept.

[cattlekate1]

Posted by Kanaduh_eh at 11:33 AM : Jun 11, 2009

BUT, isn't 40 knots the envelope in the coffin corner? I am not an engineer or pilot, but this is more looking like Pitot tubes (3?) iced up - giving mixed messages. Auto shutting off and going into alternate law. Pilots not realizing they were in Mach .8. Plane does mach tucks, plane dives, and loss of structural integrity rips off stabilzer/tail section. Wings shatter upon impact with ocean.

Pilots and avionic engineers probably have some opinions after looking at the photos of the stabilizer, with its intact bolts and composite-ripped section.

One would think the place where the stabilizer was found could allow tracing back to the tail section under the water. And thus find the black boxes.

As horrid as it is, could it be that the 40-plus bodies were the ones sucked out with the tail section (sucked out of seats) and that is why they are on the ocean surface. (And died quickly due to loss of air pressure and collapsed lungs, not to mention hypthermia.

If so, then the main two cabins and cockpit should have hit the ocean and sunk. That is why the wings are in shattered pieces.

We will find out soon, I am sure. But I will not fly an Airbus fly-by-wire ever again. I will not fly a carbon-composite ship. Boeing is coming out with one, along with the super-composite A500 series. I want the pilots to be able to tell if the plane is too fast or too slow!