Air France CEO says he is ‘not convinced’ sensors caused crash of AF 447

August 21st, 2009 Air France sued over plane crash investigationPARIS — A lawyer says the family of a French flight attendant who perished in an Air France plane crash on June 1 over the Atlantic Ocean is suing the airline to force it to release information on what caused the tragedy. The Airbus jet went down while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

August 14th, 2009 Brazil identifies last body in Air France crashSAO PAULO — Brazilian authorities say they have used DNA to identify the last body found from the Air France jet crash in the mid-Atlantic that killed 228 people. Officials say the 50th body recovered was that of a non-Brazilian man, but they have not revealed his nationality or his identity.

August 7th, 2009 Airspeed systems failed on US planesWASHINGTON — Investigators have discovered that on at least 12 recent flights by U.S. jetliners, equipment malfunctioned and pilots had no idea how fast they were flying.

July 31st, 2009 Euro regulators order Airbus sensors replacedBRUSSELS — European air safety regulators told world airlines on Friday they will have to replace hundreds of air speed sensors of the type that may have contributed to the Air France Airbus A330 crash in the Atlantic Ocean in June. The announcement came after Airbus recommended that airlines flying its planes exchange some of the speed sensors manufactured by Thales Corp.

July 28th, 2009 Flight 'incident' puts speed sensors in spotlightPARIS — The pilot of an Air France plane flying from Rome to Paris this month spent a minute without information on the speed of the aircraft, which was equipped with new generation speed sensors installed after the June crash of another flight, the newspaper Le Figaro reported in an article for its Thursday edition. The report said the lives of passengers on the July 13 flight were not in danger.

July 9th, 2009 Remains of Flight 447 en route to France for probePARIS — More than 600 pieces of Air France Flight 447 are being sent from Brazil to France by ship to be studied further for clues into the June 1 crash, Airbus said Thursday. The disaster overshadowed a meeting of Air France-KLM shareholders on Thursday, with pilots saying the company didn't do enough to prevent the plane from crashing into the Atlantic Ocean.

July 8th, 2009 Air France pilots demand probe into speed sensorsPARIS — Air France pilots have asked French crash investigators for details of the airline's past problems with the speed sensors suspected of being a factor in the crash of Air France Flight 447. The Airbus A330 plane came down in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1 after running into thunderstorms en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

July 4th, 2009 Correction: France-Crash Investigation storyLE BOURGET, France — In a July 2 story about the probe into the crash of Air France flight 447, The Associated Press erroneously quoted Charles-Henri Tardivat, a lawyer for the victims' families, as saying the phase of grief had passed. Tardivat said families "started concentrating on their families, their grief, and how to be able to put a close on at least that part of their life" once they realized how little was available from the investigation.

July 2nd, 2009 French say sensors not cause of Flight 447 crashLE BOURGET, France — A French investigator says speed sensors were a factor but were not the cause of the crash of Air France flight 447. Alain Bouillard, leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident investigation agency BEA, says the sensors, called Pitot tubes, were not the only factor.

July 1st, 2009 21 more victims of Air France crash identifiedRIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian officials say they've identified the remains of 21 more people who were aboard an Air France jet when it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean last month. Authorities say 17 newly identified victims were foreign and four were Brazilian.

June 11th, 2009 PARIS - The chances of recovering the black boxes of the Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic last week are slim, the carrier's head, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, said here Thursday. "It would be quite an accomplishment if the flight data recorders were recovered," Gourgeon told journalists, adding that the devices had never before been recovered from such ocean depths as is being attempted.

June 10th, 2009 PARIS/SAO PAULO - Air France has replaced two of three airspeed sensors on its entire fleet of Airbus A330 and A340 jets, according to a media report Wednesday. The carrier replaced two out of three Pitot tubes on each of the planes early Wednesday after a trade union urged pilots not to fly the planes until the changes had been carried out, the La Tribune newspaper reported.

June 9th, 2009 union: All Air France jets have new speed monitorsPARIS — A spokesman for a pilots' union says all Air France jets taking off now have been equipped with two new-generation speed sensors. The so-called Pitot tubes on the outside of an aircaft are under suspicion in the crash of Air France Flight 447 into the Atlantic Ocean.

June 8th, 2009 Air France union demands new instrumentsPARIS — An Air France union urged pilots Monday to refuse to fly Airbus A330s and A340s unless their external speed and altitude monitors have been replaced. The instruments, known as Pitot tubes, have drawn attention in the investigation into the crash of Air France Flight 447.

June 7th, 2009 Obama pledges support on Air France probeCAEN, France — President Barack Obama says the United States has authorized all of the government's resources to investigate an Air France plane that disappeared off the coast of South America. Obama told French President Nicholas Sarkozy on Saturday that Americans offer their thoughts and their prayers to the French, particularly those who lost family members in the suspected crash.