Air France changes jet speed sensors

AIR FRANCE has replaced all the pitot tubes in its long-distance A330 and A340 fleet, after they were implicated in the Rio-Paris tragedy in which 228 died.

The speed sensors had been previously reported to Airbus as being faulty and manufacturer Thales has changed the design.

An investigation into this month’s loss of flight AF 447 has focused on "inconsistent" pitot readings which could have confused the plane's flight computers and led the pilots to fly too fast or too slowly into a storm.

Air France said it reported icing problems on the pitot tubes in May 2008 and had asked Airbus for a solution.

However, Airbus chief executive Louis Gallois says the sensors could not have been the sole cause of the accident.

Saying the replacement programme was due to problems at takeoff and landing, Mr Gallois contradicted much of the speculation since the crash in saying: “We don’t know if the pitots were part of the accident. Thales has improved the pitot [design] but the problem was with water on takeoff and landing, not a problem faced by aircraft flying at 25,000ft.”

He told Aviation International News: “I hope we find the black box [flight recorders] and I hope sincerely that we will find the root cause. It takes the convergence of different causes to create such an accident, [so] it’s much too early to look at causes.”

French nuclear submarine Emeraude is searching a 14-square mile area daily for the black boxes, with the search zone changing each day.
So far around 50 bodies have been recovered from the Atlantic, just off Brazil, and reports say they have no burn marks, ruling out an explosion or a fire.