French investigators say speed sensors not direct cause of Air France Flight 447 crash

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 15th, 2009 Flight 447 debris returned to FrancePARIS — Debris from Air France Flight 447 has been brought to France for further examination, the agency investigating the crash said Wednesday. Flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, more than 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) off Brazil's northeastern coast, on June 1 as it flew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

July 10th, 2009 Ships ending search for Air France black boxesRIO DE JANEIRO — Two ships using U.S. listening devices to search for the black boxes of Air France Flight 447 were ending their hunt Friday, an American commander said.

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 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.

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 11th, 2009 Air France CEO 'not convinced' sensors cause crashPARIS — Air France's CEO said Thursday that he is "not convinced" faulty speed monitors caused the crash of Flight 447, which went down on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people aboard. Replacement external speed monitors — or Pitot tubes — for jet models of the same type as the crashed plane arrived three days before the fatal accident, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told journalists.

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 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 Organization of the Air France crash probeThe French accident investigation agency, known by its French acronym BEA, is in charge of the inquiry into what happened to Air France Flight 447, which crashed with 228 aboard en route from Rio to Paris. The man in charge of the investigation, Alain Bouillard, led the probe into the 2000 crash of the Concorde supersonic jet.