At the time of the accident, with nearly 7 hrs still to go to CDG, the fuel distribution should have been as follows: Tailplane full (4.9T) or part-full; * Centre empty; Inners part-full; ** Outers full (each 2.8T); Vent Tanks empty (outboard of the Outers).
Chris
Thanks very much, I had it a bit arse backwards there.
The thought I had of the wing tanks having a lot of fuel (in combination) seems roughly right. I'll guess that the fuel tanks suffered trauma, and fuel escaped both as parts first floated just after impact, and then eventually began to sink. I have an idea beginning to form that any fuel slick might not have been very large ...
PJ2:
Thanks as well for the explanation, and the link to the Nagoya crash.
A water impact, as has been pointed out, would be as hard, but once the initial impact had shattered the aircraft, the high inertial energy vertical and horizontal components of the resulting wreckage would quickly be absorbed by the water, remaining largely together in a collected mass, their individual weight and buoyancy then acting as a distribution filter, slowly separating heavier from lighter parts as they descended and were affected by whatever currents there were, creating the pattern observed in the AUV image, (as observed by others, JD-EE in particular has described quite well above). I think a general conclusion may be made as to direction of flight. All parts descending through the same "water column" (roughly), would be affected in the same general manner.