Navy device hunts crash jet black boxes
A Dutch ship towing a high-tech, US Navy listening device was trawling the Atlantic today for data and voice recorders that investigators say are key to determining what caused an Air France jet to crash with 228 people on board.
The navy device, called a Towed Pinger Locator, will try to detect emergency audio beacons, or pings, from Flight 447’s black boxes, which could be lying thousands of feet below the ocean surface.
Without the recorders, it may be impossible to know what caused the Airbus A330, which had five Britons aboard, to crash several hundred miles off Brazil’s north-eastern coast on May 31, on its way to Paris from Rio de Janeiro.
The locator device is capable of searching to a depth of 20,000 feet. The first of two devices was towed in yesterday by a Dutch ship contracted by France.
US Air Force colonel Willie Berges, commander of the American military forces supporting the search operation, said the locator device would start operating as soon as searchers were sure it would not interfere with a French nuclear submarine already searching for the black boxes.
Another Dutch ship carrying a second listening device will arrive today.
The ships will tow the locators in a grid pattern while 10-person teams watch for signals on computer screens.
The search area includes some of the deepest waters of the Atlantic and in two more weeks the boxes’ signals will begin to fade.
In Paris, the head of Airbus’s parent company said there was probably more than one reason for the crash.
“In such an accident, there is not one cause,” EADS chief executive Louis Gallois said.
“It’s the convergence of different causes creating such an accident.”
“It’s essential for everybody to know what happened and we know that it’s not easy. I hope we will find the black box.”
Investigators have so far focused on the possibility that external speed monitors – called Pitot tubes – iced over and gave false readings to the plane’s computers.
Meanwhile a member of French accident investigation agency BEA arrived in the Brazilian city of Recife to begin examining some of the debris retrieved from the ocean.
Brazilian Air Force colonel Henry Munhoz said the investigator would probably begin with some of the larger pieces such as the nearly-intact vertical stabiliser fished out of the water by Brazilian searchers.
He said he did not know if the BEA would continue analysing the pieces in Brazil or have them shipped to France.
French ambassador Pierre-Jean Vandoorne also arrived in Recife yesterday to be briefed on the search mission.
The private Agencia Estado news service quoted Mr Vandoorne as saying that the BEA will also be responsible for examining the passengers’ personal belongings.
So far there is no evidence of an explosion or terrorist act, just clues that point to systemic failures on the plane. Experts say the evidence uncovered up until now points to at least a partial mid-air break-up.
Military ships and planes resumed operations Sunday after rough weather halted the efforts, Munhoz said.
Coroners have said victims’ dental records and DNA samples from relatives will be necessary to confirm the identities of the 16 bodies that have been examined.
Brazilian authorities yesterday revised the number of bodies they have retrieved downward, from 44 to 43, after a recount. Another six have been pulled from the Atlantic by French ships.
