Regarding the flight of LH507, which appears in the first interim report, and has since 'disappeared'.
The first interim report states that LH507 preceded AF447 by "about 20 minutes" at FL 350, and describes the experience of LH507:
The crew reported that it flew at the upper limit of the cloud layer and then in the clouds in the region of ORARO. In this zone they saw green echoes on the radar on their path, which they avoided by changing their route by about ten nautical miles to the west. While flying through this zone, which took about fifteen minutes, they felt moderate turbulence and did not observe any lightning. They lowered their speed to the speed recommended in turbulent zones. They saw bright St Elmo’s fire on the windshield on the left-hand side.
(TASIL is 119 NM from ORARO.)
As AF447 had estimated ORARO at 02h00, this would indicate LH507 passed ORARO at around 01h40.
The last communication from AF447 to ATLANTICO was at 01h35.43, when they thanked ATLANTICO for the SELCAL test. Assuming they went to SELCAL mode immediately following that acknowledgment, they would not have heard communications, if any, between LH507 and ATLANTICO on its deviation between ORARO and TASIL. Whether there was any communication between ATLANTICO and LH507 prior to 0135 regarding weather ahead (and which might have been overheard by AF447) will have to await a future BEA report.
Presumably future BEA reports will also have timestamps for communications between ATLANTICO and the flights following AF447 as they deviated on approaching the mesoscale convective complex north of ORARO, and give some indication when these flight crews began evasive action. And if the CVR is both recovered and readable, their actions can be compared to what happened in the cockpit as AF447 encountered this complex and proceeded to penetrate it.
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Aside from valuable lessons learned for application to future searches, any fingerpointing on the timing and adequacy of the initial search for AF447 will only begin in earnest if the recorders are recovered, but are unreadable because they have been in the water too long.
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Mr. Optimistic, if I recall correctly, three CC seats were recovered. None appeared to have been occupied at the time of impact. That probably meant at least one of the CC was not in his or her seat.