Thanks for that link to the Times story, Carjockey.
This bit looks downright ominous:-
"It has emerged that the same sequence of events occurred in six cockpit emergencies reported by Airbus pilots over a year beginning in February 2008. According to internal Air France documents leaked to the press, the incidents involved “a rather incoherent cocktail of alarms” and “severe breakdowns”. These appear to have originated with malfunctioning pitot tubes in stormy weather.
"In one incident, an Air France pilot issued a mayday call between Paris and Tokyo in turbulent weather after the loss of speed indication resulted in the disengagement of the automatic pilot and set off other alarms. In all six incidents, however, the pilots regained control of the aircraft.
"Air France advised pilots on November 6 last year about the “significant number of incidents” in which false speed readings had confused the automated flight system."