I saw this item from Reuters just now at Air France dément tout manque de réactivité lors du vol AF 447 - Yahoo! Actualités
It sources from Le Figaro, a leading national daily of conservative bent.
Anything between quotes is out of Mr. Gourgeon's mouth; the rest is journalese.
I have omitted some content.
In an interview published on Thursday in Figaro, Air-France/KLM CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said pitot tube icing "may have been a factor" in the AF447 crash but "does not suffice to explain the accident."
He denied having access "to a secret recording from the pilot," one of the many rumors in circulation around this case.
He said "no radio recording was picked up between AF447 and (other) aircraft in the area."
"The Air France control center only became aware very gradually that something was going wrong."
Over six hours passed between last contact with AF447 and a first report to the BEA.
"We often lose aircraft over Russia, Africa or oceans and we find them. Because sometimes aircraft have radio malfunctions."
"Between 0630 and 0830 (LT France) it's still too early for Brest or Madrid to pick up the flight. It was only after connecting the dots between the numerous electronic maintenance messages and long radio silence that disappearance of the aircraft was suspected, at about 0830."
"Asst. Gen. Manager for Operations Gilbert Rovetto phoned me and said that ATC centres were confirming no contact with AF447 the one after the other. That meant we had probably lost an aircraft."
He said nothing indicated the seriousness of the situation to the technician on duty that morning who processed the 24 automatic messages from the aircraft.
He said the problems faced by AF447 were not the result of any negligence.
"There is no contradiction between safety and bottomlines (économie). When you improve safety, you improve the company image and you logically improve its competitive (économiques) performance."
The BEA report...affirms that the aircraft hit the water intact, practically in normal flight attitude, i.e. in horizontal position.