Sarkozy: Plug air traffic gaps over Atlantic

PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy, denouncing “black holes” in air traffic controls, said Tuesday that officials are working out ways to avoid surveillance gaps over the Atlantic Ocean after the crash of Air France Flight 447.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet were heading to Dakar on Tuesday to meet with Senegalese officials and discuss how to make sure “there is no more black hole” in air traffic control, Sarkozy said.

“It’s not normal” to have such gaps, Sarkozy said at a news conference Tuesday with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The two leaders have cooperated on the international search operation and investigation following the June 1 crash of Air France Flight 447 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed when the Airbus A330 slammed into the Atlantic, 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) off Brazil’s mainland, amid thunderstorms and out of radar coverage.

French air accident investigator Alain Bouillard said last week that air traffic controllers in Dakar, Senegal, were never officially given control of the flight by Brazilian authorities.

Bouillard said the issue of who was in control of the flight is part of the investigation, but he did not suggest it contributed to the crash.

Silva noted that on his flight to Europe he, too, passed through the zone with no surveillance. Once out of Brazilian air space “there is communication with no one,” he said.

“I saw for myself there is a hole,” he told reporters.

But he stressed that the cause of the crash remains unknown. “We don’t know why yet,” he said.

In their first report on the investigation, French investigators said last week the plane slammed into the sea, intact and belly first, at such a high speed that the people aboard probably had no time to even inflate their life jackets.

The Brazilian air force says it told Senegal that the Air France flight would enter its airspace at 0220 GMT on June 1. It added that under an agreement between the two nations, controllers need only inform their Senegalese counterparts of a flight’s expected arrival time, and then it is up to Senegal to initiate any further contact if a flight does not arrive.

However, the Air Navigation Security Agency for Africa and Madagascar, known as ASECNA, denied that, saying it was Brazil’s responsibility to call controllers in Dakar to confirm the plane’s arrival.

Silva also played down French accusations that Brazilian forensic experts were not releasing information about the autopsies on some of the 51 bodies found.

“There is nothing to hide,” he said.

The search for more bodies has been called off, but a search for the plane’s black box flight recorders by French, U.S. and Dutch authorities will continue for another three days. The boxes could hold key clues to what happened but they are deep under ocean and their signals are fading.