Crashed Air France Flight 447 recorder located, data module missing
28 Apr 2011
The mystery of Air France Flight 447 promises to endure with French Air Accident Investigation Bureau (BEA) confirming on Wednesday the recovery of the aircraft's Flight Data Recorder (FDR) minus the memory module that stores all the crucial information.
Investigators with deep-sea diving equipment have been searching for the wreckage of the Air France A330-200 aircraft that crashed in the South Atlantic on 1 June 2009. Recovery of the FDR is critical to finding out what actually transpired on board the aircraft before it crashed.
A BEA statement, quoted by Bloomberg, said that the FDR is missing "the memory module that stores its crucial information.''
According to BEA, cable vessel Ile de Sein began the first operational dive and a Remus 6000 drone submarine found a field of metal debris scattered across the ocean bottom 600 miles off the coast of northern Brazil on 3 April and transmitted pictures of what is believed to be the aircraft's two engines, bits of landing gear and a section of fuselage.
BEA told Bloomberg, ''The search is continuing for the missing data module as well as the separate cockpit voice recorder and other wreckage that may be useful to the investigation.''
