AF447's Flight Recorders Back in France
They may help French aviation investigators solve the mystery about the 2009 crash off the coast of Brazil.
Jean-Paul Troadec, director of the French Bureau of Inquiry and Analysis (BEA), will be joined by investigator-in-charge Christophe Menez and several others today at a news conference to discuss the analysis of flight recorders recovered from the wreckage of Air France Flight 447, which crashed after flying into a high-altitude thunderstorm off the northeastern Brazilian coast on June 1, 2009.
All 228 people aboard the Airbus A330 jetliner were killed. When autonomous underwater vehicles found the wreckage last month, some of the passengers' bodies were still strapped in their seats inside pieces of the fuselage on the ocean floor.
The flight recorders were brought back from the site under judicial seal. They are scheduled to arrive at BEA's headquarters today, with the news conference following at 10 a.m. local time, according to a BEA online announcement.
Besides Troadec and Menez, participants in the news conference will include Philippe Vinogradoff, special representative for the AF447 families; Jean-Claude Marin, prosecutor in Paris Court, or his representative; Col. Francois Daoust, head of the French forensic institute (IRCGN); and Xavier Mulot, head of the judicial investigation unit of the French Genearmerie. An engine from the plane and its avionics bay containing on-board computers have recently been raised from the crash site, BEA reported.