French ship scans Atlantic seafloor in hunt for Air France Flight 447’s black boxes

August 20th, 2009 French end search for Flight 447 black boxesPARIS — French investigators said Thursday they have abandoned a second round of search efforts for the black box flight recorders from Air France Flight 447, believed to be resting in the depths of the Atlantic. The Airbus jet crashed into the ocean June 1 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing all 228 people aboard.

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 7th, 2009 Official: Comoros black boxes too deep for diversNAIROBI, Kenya — Investigators have concluded that the black boxes from a plane that plunged into the Indian Ocean with 153 people onboard are too deep to be reached by divers, a French official said Tuesday. Yemenia Airways Flight 626 crashed into the Indian Ocean north of the Comoros Islands a week ago.

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 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.

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 30th, 2009 Flight 447 black box search goes on past deadlinePARIS — French investigators say the search for the black boxes of Flight 447 is continuing although they are no longer certain to emit signals. The flight's voice and data recorders are guaranteed to emit signals for 30 days after an accident.

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 Officials: No black box signals from Flight 447PARIS — French military ships searching for the black boxes of Flight 447 have detected sounds in the Atlantic depths but they are not from the Air France plane's flight recorders, French officials said Tuesday. The officials and French investigators denied a report on the Web site of the French newspaper Le Monde that French ships had picked up a signal from the black boxes.

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 MOSCOW - Signals from the flight data recorders of the Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board have been located, a media report said Tuesday. The Le Monde newspaper said French naval vessels had picked up a weak signal from the flight recorders at the site of the June 1 crash.

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 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 11th, 2009 LONDON - Two pieces of new evidence have suggested that the Air France jet broke up mid-air in minutes, rather than in one catastrophic incident.earchers in the Atlantic fear ocean storms would have scattered the debris and bodies further apart Firstly, bodies from Flight 447 had been picked up from locations more than 50 miles apart, the Brazilian Air Force revealed. And secondly, a re-analysis of the plane's last automatic transmissions indicated many parts had malfunctioned before it plunged into the Atlantic.

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.