France to Renew Search for Plane’s Data Recorders
By NICOLA CLARK
Published: October 26, 2009
PARIS —
France is preparing to spend as much as €20 million next year on a renewed search for the flight data recorders and undersea wreckage of the Air France A330 jetliner that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in June, killing all 228 people aboard, the new head of the French agency charged with investigating the accident said Monday.
The news comes amid mounting tension within Air France as the airline prepares for an external audit of its flight safety procedures next month.
The agency, the Bureau of Investigations and Analyses, has begun preparing for a third attempt to locate the black boxes of
Air France Flight 447 that it expects will begin early next year, with the support of experts and specialized equipment from the United States, Britain,
Brazil and Russia, said Jean-Paul Troadec, who took over as head of the agency this month.
The agency, which has already spent roughly €10 million, or $15 million, scouring the ocean floor for clues to what caused the accident, plans to spend an additional €10 million to €20 million for the next phase of the search, Mr. Troadec said.
Air France Flight 447 left Rio de Janeiro and was en route to Paris when it went down on June 1 during strong thunderstorms in an area about 960 kilometers, or 600 miles, off northern Brazil. Search teams recovered over 600 pieces of debris from the ocean, representing about 5 percent of the airframe, investigators have said. The bulk of the wreckage has not been found and is presumed to be lying on the mountainous seabed, deep below the ocean surface.
Investigators have yet to pinpoint the cause of the disaster, although they suspect that a malfunction of the aircraft’s speed sensors may have contributed to the crash. A preliminary report published in July said an examination of the floating debris indicated that the plane had hit the water intact.
“We still don’t know what happened in the cockpit, and we will need to find and analyze the recorders to understand,” Mr. Troadec said at the agency’s offices in Le Bourget, near Paris. “Our knowledge of this accident does not allow us to develop a scenario.”
But he did say that autopsy reports recently received from Brazilian medical examiners appeared to confirm that the crash victims died “on impact with the water.”
In December, the agency plans to publish a second intermediate report that will include detailed analysis of the evidence gathered so far as well as some recommendations about how to improve the storage and transmission of flight data to aid future crash investigations, Mr. Troadec said.
Investigators in July abandoned an audio search for the flight recorders’ “pingers,” which are designed to emit a signal for 30 to 40 days. A second phase of the hunt, using diving equipment and sonar scanners towed by a French frigate, ended in September without success. Mr. Troadec there had been no further search activity.