Mark in CA writes...

"Has anyone read anything yet about how deep the wreckage is? The BBC report stated only that they had been searching as deep as 4000 meters, but didn't specify where the wreckage was found. Just curious."

Yes the wreck was located at roughly 3900 meters (12,800') of depth and they disclosed its position but with a 10 nm fudge factor.

Why the fudge factor:confused: no GPS? or sonar trianguarization?

I take it that they don't wish to disclose the exact location as they don't want every tom dick and harry in the atlantic turning up there.

As with Titanic, with human remains still inside, it constitutes a burial place.

More like Occam's Sledge Hammer. :E

While I am elated to hear that they have found what eluded them for so long, I worry that in the past year and a half, the tail section/CVR/FDR have had ample opportunity to get a little covered up with "stuff" and thus elude search. I hope I am wrong, as finding out the "why" is of interest to the air traveling public, as well as to professional aircrews who travel those long transoceanic routes.

Now I understand why the Tech Log is the place where serious people debate the same subject, rather than look for ghosts, some of the above posts are appropriate for the rumour section....

This is good news folks...If I had a catastrophic failure in the cruise and plummeted with my crew and pax to 120 under the ocean, I would hope they would search for my FDR no matter how long it took.

vanHorck, precisely. The first AF 447 thread in rumours and news was closed because all manner of esoteric theories and explanations drifted into that thread. The techlog thread is now nearing 3,000 posts, most of them substantive, and many of them very informative postings by very knowledgeable people.

I am no conspiracy theorist but when I hear "Airbus" and "black box" spoken in the same sentence, this incident springs to mind: Air France Flight 296 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wasn't the fact that many C/Bs were pulled effecting some systems on the aircraft play a role in the crash.

In any case any pilot that takes a fully loaded plane down to 30 feet above a runway in an "airshow" in a high alpha low speed pass deserves to be hung!

Ladies & gentlemen, please do not feed the trolls.

I for one am happy about the discovery, and optimistic that helpful information will be found. Although the pictures remind me of what a beautiful machine it was.

It's a good thing
 

Enjointhis:
Amen. Let science and due diligence prevail. Congrats to AF and BEA etc. on seeing this thing out.

Congrats to the Americans who found the wreck.

When will our French friends thank the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution?

They will probably be thanked with a paycheck for services rendered.

Color me cynical, but I still can not believe that NATO/French subs could not find pinging boxes for 30 days.

But I have no doubt that this time the paint on the FDR/CVR will be consistent.

AF296 has nothing to do with this, and the conspiracy theories over that are best left to run on by themselves. The assertion that a crash site at this depth can be tampered with, especially when world-leading authorities on deep oceanographic exploration are closely involved, is frankly ludicrous.

Wreckage and sonar images
 

http://www.bea.aero/fr/enquetes/vol....ges.du.site.ph

I don't think anybody posted this yet apologies if I missed it. Don't know much about aircraft but a bit about sonar - that's a very flat seabed.

Anywhere where photo's of the A/F elements of the a/c found on the sea floor have been posted? All I've seen is the video details running in the background of the CNN report.

Images in the media now.http://images.theage.com.au/2011/04/...e3-600x400.jpg

I think that's highly unlikely, the wreckage is nearly 4000m down, what are they expecting....tours!

Bravo for finding the wreckage though. This will hopefully give the relatives and loved ones of those that perished some kind of closeure.