Air France crash plane not destroyed in flight: Official

August 31st, 2009 Air France crash inquiry could take more than yearPARIS — The director of the French agency investigating the crash of Air France Flight 447 says the probe could take a year and a half. BEA director Paul-Louis Arslanian says he still doesn't know exactly where the plane went down, three months after the Rio to Paris flight crashed into the Atlantic killing all 228 people aboard.

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.

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 7th, 2009 Divers, investigators in Comoros search for planeNAIROBI, Kenya — A Comoran official says little debris and no bodies from the crashed Yemenia Airways plane have been found, but predicts that will change once the exact location of the plane's black boxes are pinpointed. One 12-year-old girl survived by clinging to floating debris for up to 13 hours after the June 30 plane crash, but 152 other passengers and crew are still missing from Flight 626.

July 6th, 2009 Body found in sea off Comoros not from plane crashNAIROBI, Kenya — A Comoran official says a body has been found in the Indian Ocean but it is not related to the Yemenia Airways plane crash that killed 152 people last week. A search and rescue official says a body was found Sunday off the island of Anjouan.

July 3rd, 2009 PARIS - The Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean last month, killing all 228 people on board plunged vertically from the sky so suddenly that passengers and crew on board did not even have time to inflate their life jackets. The Telegraph quoted investigators as saying that the Airbus "descended vertically" and dropped 35,000 feet in a matter of seconds, hitting the water in its exact flying position.

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 2nd, 2009 French: Air France Flight 447 fell intact into seaLE BOURGET, France — A French investigator says Air France Flight 447 did not break up in flight but plunged vertically into the Atlantic Ocean. 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 were not inflated.

June 23rd, 2009 Official: No black box signals from Flight 447 PARIS — A French official says sounds detected by search teams in the Atlantic depths are not those of Flight 447's black boxes. The aide to France's top transport official, Jean-Louis Borloo, says the "black boxes have not been detected." The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to be publicly named.

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 4th, 2009 French say Air France plane speed not knownPARIS — The French agency investigating the crash of the Air France jet over the Atlantic says automatic messages received from the plane have failed to show exactly how fast the aircraft was flying. The Accident Investigation Agency says only two findings have been established.

June 4th, 2009 PARIS - An Air France pilot has declared it "highly likely" that flight AF447 may have been blown up by a terrorist bomb. The long-haul captain, speaking on condition of anonymity, dismissed the theory the doomed jet suffered catastrophic electrical failure.

June 3rd, 2009 Air France: False bomb threat in Buenos AiresPARIS — An Air France spokesman says the airline received a bomb threat for a flight from Buenos Aires to Paris on May 27, but that warning proved to be false. Spokesman Nicolas Petteau said Wednesday that an Air France agency in Buenos Aires received an anonymous phone call threatening Flight 415.