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Air France crash: Black box signals located


French naval vessels detected a weak signal from the flight data recorders, according to French newspaper Le Monde. They said that a mini submarine has been dispatched on Monday to try and find the black boxes on the bottom of the ocean floor.

The “black boxes” may contain vital information that could help explain what happened when the Airbus A330 aircraft crashed into the sea en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1.

Locator beacons, known as “pingers”, on the flight recorders send an electronic impulse every second for at least 30 days. The signal can be heard up to 2 km (1.2 miles) away.
French vessels involved in the search operation include a nuclear submarine with advanced sonar equipment and a research ship equipped with mini submarines.
The remote location in the Atlanticas well as the depth and surface of the ocean floor have made the search especially difficult and the wreckage could lie anywhere between a depth of 1 km (0.6 miles) and 4 km (2.5 miles).

An Air France spokeswoman said she could not confirm the report. The Transport Ministry and the air accident investigation office could not be reached immediately for comment.

Without the black boxes to help explain what went wrong, the investigation has focused on a flurry of automated messages sent by the plane minutes before it lost contact. One of the messages suggests external speed sensors had iced over, destabilising the plane’s control systems.

On Monday, 10 of the 50 bodies recovered from the flight were identified as Brazilian nationals.

Dental records, fingerprints and DNA samples were used to identify the bodies but investigators were also reviewing all remains, debris and baggage at a base set up in the town of Recife, the capital of Pernambuco. – (The Telegraph)

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