The French aircraft accident investigation agency, the Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses (BEA) has given an update into its investigation into the crash, on June 1, of Air France Airbus A330-200, registration F-GZCP, into the South Atlantic, while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, which cost 228 lives.

It also announced that the current undersea search for the aircraft’s Cockpit Voice Recorder and Digital Flight Data Recorder – popularly known as the Black Boxes – will continue until July 10. But, assuming that the aeroplane’s wreckage and Black Boxes are not found by then, a second phase of searching, employing different techniques, will be started on July 14. The investigators are determined to find them.

“As of today [Thursday, July 2] we are far from having any real idea of the causes of this accident,” explained BEA investigator Alain Boulliard.

However, examination of structural components of the aircraft recovered from the surface of the ocean has revealed that they were deformed from the bottom to the top. This suggests that F-GZCP hit the sea “in the direction of flight and with a sharp vertical acceleration”. This, in turn, indicates that the aircraft was “not destroyed in flight”. The aeroplane’s speed sensors were “a factor but not the cause” of the disaster.

The investigators have, however, determined that no distress call was made, either to air traffic control or to other aircraft. The BEA has also established that the maintenance of the lost aircraft complied with all requirements, and that there were no reports from the crew of any technical problems.

The Bureau further looked at the experiences of three other flights that were in the vicinity of the crash at about the same time – an Iberia Airbus A340, flying only 12 minutes behind F-GZCP, a second Air France A330, which was 37 minutes behind the lost aircraft, and a Lufthansa Boeing 747-400, which was 20 minutes away.

All were flying at about the same altitude as F-GZCP, in flight levels 350 to 370, and they took action to evade storm cells lying between the Oraro and Tasil waypoints, diverging from their courses by between 10 nautical miles (18 km) and 80 nautical miles (144 km). All encountered “moderate turbulence” reported Boulliard.

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