that the EPIRB antenna may have snapped off or been damaged in the impact - hence inability to find it.
I thought they weren't vulnerable to that sort of thing happening?
Tartere, I think you will find that only about 15% of all missing (crashed) aircraft are actually found using an ELB. There is though a better way of tracking and finding aircraft these days.. Spidertracks and the likes now produce GPS / Satellite tracking and this has proved to be a much more useful tool in finding 'lost' aircraft. For the cost involved all aircraft should have one of these installed.