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Flight recorders from Air France Flight 447 found
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May 5, 2011
Original URL: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Flight_recorders_from_Air_France_Flight_447_found



Officials from France's aviation accident investigation agency, the
Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) announced
on Tuesday that they had recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) of
Air France Flight 447 has been located and brought to surface by a
Remora 6000 unmanned submarine and brought aboard the ''Île de Sein'',
one of the vessels taking part in the recovery and salvage efforts.

This came two days after an announcement on Sunday that the
crash-survivable memory unit of the flight data recorder (FDR) of the
aircraft had been located and brought to the surface. The chassis of the
FDR was located on April 27, with the memory unit missing. It was found
a short distance from the chassis. It was also brought to the surface by
the Remora 6000.

With the recovery of both recorders, which are reported to be "in good
condition", French officials hope to determine what caused the Airbus
A330-200 to crash into the Atlantic Ocean back on June 1st, 2009, when
it departed Rio de Janeiro's Galeão International Airport before it was
lost 600 miles (965 km) off the coast of Brazil en route to Paris'
Charles de Gaulle Airport with 228 passengers and crew on board.

The leading theory at the moment is that the crew received incorrect air
speed readings from the aircraft's pitot tubes, devices which measure
how fast the aircraft is traveling. Experts say they tubes may have
become iced over, causing the crash. The plane's Aircraft Communications
Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) sent out 24 messages over a
four-minute long period stating numerous problems and warnings,
including incorrect air speed warnings occurring aboard the aircraft,
just prior to it going down.

However, chief operating officer of the International Bureau of
Aviation, Phil Seymour, speaking to CNN, believes the memory unit will
not be of much use to investigators saying because of the depth it was
located at,  "If you were to throw a computer into the ocean, imagine
how all the parts would eventually split and you have the corrosive
effects of seawater and the depths involved." Seymour believes the
wreckage will help reveal what happened as more is recovered.

"It may be that the more wreckage they find will help them to piece it
all together, which bit by bit could help them build a picture of what
caused the plane to come down," he added.

A BEA spokesperson had agreed with that possibility a few days earlier
when speaking to the Associated Press about the recovery of the flight
data recorder. "We can't say in advance that we're going to be able to
read it until it's been opened," the spokesperson said. As

The wreckage of the Airbus A330-200, was found back on April 8 at a
depth of 3,800 and 4,000 meters (2,070 to 2,190 fathoms or 12,467 feet
and 13,123 feet), by a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, using a Remus robotic submarine and its side-scan sonar.
After the wreckage was found, another Remus robot submarine with cameras
was sent down to the site, where it filmed bodies in the wreckage. The
location of the recorders were localized within 2 square miles (5 square
kilometers) of the flight's last position last year.

In March, a French judge placed the European aircraft maker Airbus and
Air France under investigation for possible involuntary manslaughter
charges in the 2009 crash. Both are paying the cost of the search which
is estimated to be $12.7 million (nine million euro). The crash is the
deadliest in Air France's history.

== Related news ==
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== Sources == 

* http://www.voanews.com/english/news/americas/Second-Black-Box-Found-From-Air-France-447-121149184.html
* http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/05/03/france.jet.crash/
* http://www.france24.com/en/20110503-investigators-recover-second-air-france-black-box-0#
* http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/france/110503/air-france-voice-recorder-second-black-box-found
* http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/france/110501/air-france-black-box-rio-paris-jet-crash-robot-submarine