Paris prosecutor’s office opens manslaughter probe after Air France flight vanishes

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.

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 23rd, 2009 Air France plane makes emergency landing in BostonBOSTON — An Air France flight out of Boston heading to Paris returned to make an early morning emergency landing 31 minutes after taking off. Phil Orlandella, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, said Wednesday that Flight 321 left Logan International Airport with 125 people on board at 1:16 a.m.

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 PARIS - Authorities have identified the body of the chief pilot of the Air France aircraft that plunged into the Atlantic June 1 with 228 people aboard, the airline said on its web site Thursday. "Among the victims found in the sea search, two members of the Air France crew have been identified: the flight captain and a steward," Air France said.

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 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 Air France tells families no hope of survivorsPARIS — Air France has told families of passengers aboard Flight 447 to abandon any hope of survivors. A counsellor present at a meeting with Air France's CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon says he told the families that the plane broke apart either in the air or when it slammed into the ocean's surface.

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 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.

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 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.

June 1st, 2009 PARIS - Air France has lost contact with a jetliner carrying 228 people. The flight bound from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went missing over the Atlantic Ocean.

May 14th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Air France Thursday apologised for 'all inconveniences' suffered by its passengers - mostly Indians - due to a long delay in a Paris-Mumbai flight Sunday. 'Air France apologises for the ill-treatment meted out to passengers and understands the annoyance expressed by some of them.