Up to $750 mn in damages in Air France 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 27th, 2009 Brazilians want investigation of Air France crashSAO PAULO — Relatives of Brazilian passengers who perished on an Air France jetliner that crashed over the Atlantic Ocean are demanding a criminal investigation. Government news service Agencia Brasil says the association representing the victims' relatives filed a petition with the federal attorney general's office requesting "an investigation against the possible culprits of the accident." Air France Flight 447 crashed June 1 en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro, killing all 228 people on board.

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 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 4th, 2009 Correction: France-Crash Investigation storyLE BOURGET, France — In a July 2 story about the probe into the crash of Air France flight 447, The Associated Press erroneously quoted Charles-Henri Tardivat, a lawyer for the victims' families, as saying the phase of grief had passed. Tardivat said families "started concentrating on their families, their grief, and how to be able to put a close on at least that part of their life" once they realized how little was available from the investigation.

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".

July 1st, 2009 21 more victims of Air France crash identifiedRIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian officials say they've identified the remains of 21 more people who were aboard an Air France jet when it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean last month. Authorities say 17 newly identified victims were foreign and four were Brazilian.

June 24th, 2009 Calif. must pay $6.3M over crash on rolling roadVICTORVILLE, Calif. — A jury says the California Department of Transportation must pay $6.3 million in damages for the crash of a car speeding on a rolling mountain road.

June 22nd, 2009 SAO PAOLO - Brazilian authorities have identified 11 victims, three weeks after an Air France jet carrying 228 people crashed on its way to France, a news report said. The forensics department in the port town Recife identified 10 Brazilians, among them five women, and one foreigner, whose bodies were among the 50 recovered after the Airbus A330 crashed June 1 off Brazil's coast.

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.