Air France has replaced two of three airspeed sensors on its entire fleet of Airbus A330 and A340 jets, according to a media report.
Air France has replaced two of three airspeed sensors on its entire fleet of Airbus A330 and A340 jets, according to a media report on Wednesday even as a French submarine with advanced sonar equipment began searching for the flight recorders of the airliner that crashed into the Atlantic last week and Brazil began the process of identifying the first bodies recovered.
The carrier replaced two out of three Pitot tubes on each of the planes early on Wednesday after a trade union urged pilots not to fly the planes until the changes had been carried out, the La Tribune newspaper reported.
The Pitot tubes apparently malfunctioned before the Air France Airbus A330-200 plunged into the Atlantic on June 1 with 228 people aboard. The sensors provide information about ambient air pressure and, therefore, aid in measuring the airspeed of an aircraft.
La Tribune reported that the third sensor would be replaced on each of the planes within 10 days. Air France has not commented on the issue.
Though no link between a malfunction of the Pitot tubes and the crash has yet been made, investigators are concentrating on their functioning in the final minutes of the flight, when the doomed aircraft sent out a series of inconsistent airspeed readings.
Meanwhile, the French nuclear-powered submarine Emeraude joined the search for the downed airplane on Wednesday.
The submarine will use its ultra-sensitive sonar technology to help recover the black box flight recorders, which may contain clues to explain the disaster and which are believed to lie deep on the ocean floor. If the recorders are found, unmanned submarines from the Pourquoi Pas, a French exploration and survey ship also deployed to the area, could be used to bring them in.
Recovery teams have pulled an additional 17 bodies out of the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil on Tuesday, bringing the total number of bodies retrieved to 41. The air force transported 16 bodies by helicopter from ships to the island of Fernando de Noronha.
The remains will be sent to the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife for identification, the military said. “I don’t think it is necessary for families of foreign passengers to come to Recife for identification,” Air Force Brigadier Ramon Cardoso told reporters in the city on Tuesday. “But if a relative wants to come, it will be better.”
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