SaturnV,
The BEA report is mentioning that the composition of the pilot team was conforming the operational procedures - page 80. That does not say weather there was or not an additional person in the cockpit, or weather the statement is based on the CVR, or pilot bodies found and retrieved.
But don't you think that the voice of an additional person in the cockpit would be heard? particularly if the Ozone comments were directed to her?
It would be a very significant stretch - which seems 100% impossible to me - to assume that BEA has suppressed that from the transcript of the CVR.
Originally Posted by
SaturnV
The assumption....was/is that the bodies of the two first officers were retrieved with their seats....
The fourth seat in the cockpit was also retrieved...
Three seats, two bodies. But the new information in interim report 3 raises the possibility, likely small, that the first two bodies recovered were those of the PNF who was belted in, and the wife of the PF who was sitting in the fourth seat, and also belted in. And that the body of the PF was not recovered (at that time) as he was not belted in. (The captain is now presumed to be standing or perhaps seated unbelted in the third seat.)
As the fourth seat was located directly behind the seat of the PF, this could explain why the PF was not belted in, as he could more easily turn to converse with his wife.
From a conversational context, when the PNF explains the smell of ozone, is he saying that to the PF or to the wife of the PF, who is a physics teacher?