http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AF447
bea report http://bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol.af.44...
Air France Flight 447 was a scheduled airline flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on 1 June 2009, killing all 216 passengers and 12 crewmen. Investigators have not yet determined a cause of the accident, but preliminary investigation found that the crash may have involved an icing-over of its air-speed sensors -- called pitot tubes -- during the flight, which would have led to inaccurate airspeed data, although this claim has been contested. Flight data recorder showed speeds less then 60 mph, co pilot nosed plane up stalling aircraft and hitting ocean at 10,000 feet per second.
The airliner, an Air France Airbus A330-203, registered as "F-GZCP", took off on 31 May 2009 at 19:03 local time (22:03 UTC). The last contact from the crew was a routine message to Brazilian air traffic controllers at 01:33 UTC, as the aircraft approached the edge of Brazilian radar coverage over the Atlantic Ocean, en route to Senegalese airspace off the coast of West Africa. Forty minutes later, a four-minute-long series of automatic radio messages was received from the plane, stating numerous problems and warnings. The airliner was believed to have been lost shortly after it sent the automated messages.
On 6 June 2009, a search and rescue operation recovered two bodies and some aircraft debris floating in the ocean about 680 mi (1,090 km) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha Islands off the northeastern coast of Brazil. The debris included a briefcase containing an airline ticket, later confirmed to have been issued for the flight. On 27 June the search for bodies and debris was called off. The bodies of 51 people were recovered from the surface of the ocean.
On 3 April 2011, during Phase 4 of the search and recovery operation, it was announced that a team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution had discovered significantly large portions of debris believed to be that of flight AF447. Further debris and bodies, still trapped in the partly intact remains of the aircraft's fuselage, were located in water depths of between 3,800 and 4,000 meters (2,070 to 2,190 fathoms). The debris was found to be lying in a relatively flat and silty area of the ocean floor (as opposed to the extremely mountainous topography that was originally believed to be AF447's final resting place). Other items found were engines, wing parts and the landing gear. The discovery raised hopes that the CVR and FDR (the "black boxes") might yet be recovered.
The debris field was described as "quite compact", measuring some 200 metres (660 ft) by 600 metres (2,000 ft) and located a short distance to the north of where the previously recovered pieces of wreckage had been found. This suggests that the aircraft hit the water largely intact.[102] The French Ecology and Transportation Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet stated the bodies and wreckage would be brought to the surface and taken to France for examination and identification. It was, however, not yet possible to quantify how many bodies had been discovered.[103] Most of the bodies were reported to be in a skeletal condition with numerous fractures and severe injuries caused by the crash. The French government has chartered three vessels -- the René Descartes, Ile de Bréhat and an American vessel -- which are normally used by telecommunications companies for deep-ocean cable-laying, to carry out the task of retrieving the debris and bodies.
