HN38, three cabin crew seats were recovered, two from the area of left hand door 1, and one from the area of right hand door 2. The BEA stated none of the seats was occupied at the time of impact. There were nine cabin crew on the flight, there were 11 cabin crew seats. At least one of the cabin crew was not in his or her seat.
Bodies of four cabin crew, including the body of an "in-charge" flight attendant, were recovered and autopsied, as was the body of the captain. The BEA notes that the location of the captain on the aircraft cannot be determined from the autopsy results. There is no separate characterization of the autopsy results for the four cabin crew.
On can infer (but not conclude) from the unoccupied seats that there was no command for the cabin crew to be seated because of weather ahead. From the transcript of the communication between ATLANTICO and AF447, the crew did not make any inquiries about the weather. As the BEA has yet to release a transcript of the communication between the Lufthansa flight flying ahead (which deviated from the track) and ATLANTICO, we do not know what was said regarding this, and whether AF447 might have overheard if they were monitoring the frequency.
What should one expect with regard to preparing for meteorological conditions ahead when flying into a SIGMET area, and alerted by dispatch while enroute of convection in the vicinity of TASIL?
The captain had 16 rotations on the South American sector since 2007, 1.093 flying hours on the A330.
The co-pilot had 39 rotations on the South American sector since 2002, and had 1,882 flying hours on the A330.
The second co-pilot had five rotations on the South American sector since 2008, and 216 flying hours on the A330.
Their collective experience on these rotations with regard to conditions in the ITCZ, e.g., whether these rotations were mainly during January or July, is not given.