SaturnV,
jimbeetle, the Brazilian air force's search grid on the first day of searching overflew the last known position, and they could not have been that blind to have missed the debris field, fuel or hydraulic sheen, etc. If they felt the scan of the area searched that first day was obscured because of visibility, I am quite certain that grid would have been immediately repeated.
But according to the BEA
press release on June 2nd, "The Brazilian authorities have confirmed to the BEA that floating debris has been observed in the search zone."
Since this was part of the initial search, my *assumption* is that the "search zone" was someplace, somehow, somewhere close to the LKP.
We've all seen these pictures before, but slides 5 through 10 of
Status of sea search operations as of 17 June 2009 show a very defined drift of debris and bodies from "somewhere" near the LKP (whether LKP itself or off to the West or Southwest as some folks surmise). Initial recoveries on 6 June were about 50 km north of LKP; on 7 June many recoveries were in the same area as on the 6th, with more from the NW, with one just about 10 km NW of LKP.
Anyway, all that is basically an aside to my main point -- not everything floats -- some hunks of the airframe are somewhere close to where AF447 impacted. And my assumption is that is somewhere not far from the LKP. I guess I still can't wrap my mind around the BEA assumption that the FDR can CVR would drift so far.
Sorry about the wishy-washy language, but everything about 447 so far is surmise and assumption. Plus it's the usual CYA from an old intel analyst.