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FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil – An airplane seat, a fuel slick and pieces of
white debris scattered over three miles of open ocean marked the site in the
mid-Atlantic on Tuesday where Air France Flight 447 plunged to its doom,
Brazil's defense minister said.
Brazilian military pilots spotted the wreckage, sad reminders bobbing on waves,
in the ocean 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of these islands off Brazil's
coast. The plane carrying 228 people vanished Sunday about four hours into its
flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
"I can confirm that the five kilometers of debris are those of the Air France
plane," Defense Minister Nelson Jobim told reporters at a hushed news conference
in Rio. He said no bodies had been found and there was no sign of life.
The effort to recover the debris and locate the all-important black box
recorders, which emit signals for only 30 days, is expected to be exceedingly
challenging.
"We are in a race against the clock in extremely difficult weather conditions
and in a zone where depths reach up to 7,000 meters (22,966 feet)," French Prime
Minister Francois Fillon told lawmakers in parliament Tuesday.
Brazilian military pilots first spotted the floating debris early Tuesday in two
areas about 35 miles (60 kilometers) apart, said Air Force spokesman Jorge
Amaral. The area is not far off the flight path of Flight 447.
Jobim said the main debris field was found near where the initial signs were
spotted.
The cause of the crash will not be known until the black boxes are recovered —
which could take days or weeks. But weather and aviation experts are focusing on
the possibility of a collision with a brutal storm that sent winds of 100 mph
(160 km/h) straight into the airliner's path.
"The airplane was flying at 500 mph (800 km/h) northeast and the air is coming
at them at 100 mph," said AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Henry Margusity.
"That probably started the process that ended up in some catastrophic failure of
the airplane."
Towering Atlantic storms are common this time of year near the equator — an area
known as the intertropical convergence zone. "That's where the northeast trade
winds meet the southeast trade winds — it's the meeting place of the southern
hemisphere and the northern hemisphere's weather," Margusity said.
But several veteran pilots of big airliners said it was extremely unlikely that
Flight 447's crew intended to punch through a killer storm.
"Nobody in their right mind would ever go through a thunderstorm," said Tim
Meldahl, a captain for a major U.S. airline who has flown internationally for 26
years, including more than 3,000 hours on the same A330 jetliner.
Pilots often work their way through bands of storms, watching for lightning
flashing through clouds ahead and maneuvering around them, he said.
"They may have been sitting there thinking we can weave our way through this
stuff," Meldahl said. "If they were trying to lace their way in and out of these
things, they could have been caught by an updraft."
The same violent weather that might have led to the crash also could impede
recovery efforts.
"Anyone who is going there to try to salvage this airplane within the next
couple of months will have to deal with these big thunderstorms coming through
on an almost daily basis," Margusity said. "You're talking about a monumental
salvage effort."
Remotely controlled submersible crafts will have to be used to recover wreckage
settling so far beneath the ocean's surface. France dispatched a research ship
equipped with unmanned submarines that can explore as deeply as 19,600 feet
(6,000 meters).
A U.S. Navy P-3C Orion surveillance plane — which can fly low over the ocean for
12 hours at a time and has radar and sonar designed to track submarines
underwater — and a French AWACS radar plane are joining the operation.
France also has three military patrol aircraft flying over the central Atlantic,
two commercial ships reached the floating debris, and Brazilian navy ships were
en route.
Even at great underwater pressure, the black boxes "can survive indefinitely
almost," said Bill Voss, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation in
Alexandria, Virginia. |
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