French: Air France Flight 447 did not break up in flight, fell to sea vertically

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 3rd, 2009 Brazil: Senegal took control of doomed flightBRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil's air force has released a recording it says proves it handed over control of Air France Flight 447 to Senegalese authorities before it crashed. The audio has been posted on the air force Web site after a French official said air traffic controllers in Dakar, Senegal, never officially took control of the flight.

July 2nd, 2009 PARIS - The Air France Airbus A330-200 that crashed into the Atlantic one month ago was not destroyed in flight, an official with the French Office of Accident Investigation (BEA) said Thursday at Le Bourget airport near Paris. Alain Bouillard, who is in charge of the investigation, said an analysis of the fragments of the plane that have been recovered suggests that "the plane seems to have hit the surface of the water in the line of flight with a strong vertical acceleration".

June 25th, 2009 Air France: Flight 447 pilot's body retrievedPARIS — Search crews in the mid-Atlantic have retrieved the bodies of the chief pilot of Flight 447 and a flight attendant, Air France said Thursday. The two are among 50 bodies pulled out of the ocean in the international search for remains of the 228 victims and wreckage of the May 31 crash.

June 23rd, 2009 PARIS - Signals from the flight data recorder, or the black boxes of the Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic ocean killing all 228 passengers onboard, has been located. "A French naval vessel has detected a weak signal from the flight data recorders, and a mini submarine was dispatched on Monday to try and find the black boxes at the bottom of the ocean floor," The Telegraph quoted a French newspaper Le Monde.

June 23rd, 2009 Report: Signals heard from Flight 447 black boxesPARIS — The French newspaper Le Monde reported Tuesday that French military ships have detected a signal from the black boxes of Flight 447 in the Atlantic depths. The report says a mini research submarine, the Nautile, dived Monday to search for the boxes based on a "very weak signal" from the flight recorders picked up by the French ships.

June 17th, 2009 French: no conclusions in Flight 447 probeLE BOURGET, France — French investigators say more than 400 pieces of Flight 447 have been recovered in the Atlantic. Paul-Louis Arslanian, head of the French air accident investigation agency, says no firm conclusions have been drawn in the probe into the crash.

June 12th, 2009 LONDON - An Italian woman, who arrived late for the Air France flight that crashed in the Atlantic, was not so lucky after all. She has been killed in a car accident in Austria.

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 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.

June 4th, 2009 A summary of the final messages from Flight 447French and Brazilian officials have described a "burst" of messages from Flight 447 just before it disappeared. A more complete chronology was published Wednesday by Brazil's O Estado de S.

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 3rd, 2009 French uncertain whether chief pilot at controlsPARIS — A French accident investigator says it is unclear whether the chief pilot of Air France Flight 447 was at the controls when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The head of France's accident investigation agency, Paul-Louis Arslanian, also says he is "not optimistic" that rescuers will recover the plane's black boxes miles (kilometers) under the water.

June 3rd, 2009 Captain of Air France Flight 447 was son of pilotPARIS — Marc Dubois grew up to be a pilot, just like his dad. The younger Dubois was last heard from Sunday night, when the Air France Flight 447 he was captaining encountered fierce thunderstorms over the mid-Atlantic and plunged into the ocean with 228 people on board.

June 3rd, 2009 French confirm sighting of Air France plane debrisFERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil — French officials say debris found in the Atlantic is that of missing Air France Flight 447. French military spokesman Christophe Prazuck says French military planes surveyed the remains initially spotted by Brazilian planes, and determined that the debris "corresponds to this plane." Prazuck says it is time to move to a "naval operation" to collect the remains and then "a submarine one" to try to find the plane's black boxes.