The reported meeting between the "families of victims association" and the Secretary for Transport is translated below, and as reported in the Brazilian media and in this thread a few days ago, a further meeting on 13 December of Brazilian and French officials will outline details of the proposed search.
A translation follows:-
Four months of searching are planned for the fourth phase search for the wreckage of the A330 aircraft, flight AF447 from Rio to Paris, scheduled to begin in February 2011, the Secretary of State for Transport said Monday, Nov. 29, following a meeting with the families of victims of the disaster.
"The event showcasing the associations meeting, is the next phase of searching should begin in February 2011," he said in a statement.
It will breakdown into "three phases of four weeks," said a spokesman. The research will be conducted with the aid of a vessel sourced by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute U.S., which will be exclusively responsible for locating the wreckage.
According to the secretariat of state, it "Should have fully covered the specific area around the last known position". Secretary of State for Transport Thierry Mariani also said that he would reconvene a committee in late January to appraise the families.
The Secretary of State for Transport, Thierry Mariani was quoted as saying, "This campaign will use the best location equipment available today".
So far, only a few pieces of the plane and fifty bodies have been recovered. The black boxes, which recorded flight parameters and the pilots conversations that would explain the disaster, were not found in the previous three search phases that were completed on May 24 last.
The failure of the Pitot speed measuring sensors, manufactured by Thales, was singled out in the provisional findings of the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), responsible for technical investigations, however, that single failure alone can not explain the catastrophe.
The accident is also the subject of judicial investigation in Paris.
mm43