Post-crash, Air France replaces airspeed monitors in its entire fleet of Airbus A330 and A340 planes

Air France has completed replacing airspeed monitors aboard the carrier’s long-haul passenger planes Airbus A330 and Airbus A340 following the cash of the Air France Flight 447.

Flight 447 – an Airbus A330 plane – had, on June 1, 2009, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on it s way from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Paris in France. All the 228 people on board perished in the accident.

An investigation has revealed that the crash occurred owing to a possible defect of the pitot airspeed sensors.

This was the worst air disaster in the 75-year-old history of Air France.

In a press release, Erick Derivry, a spokesman of the SNPL pilots union, said that Air France had informed the union a few days that the airline had speeded up a programme to replace the suspect pitots in view of the crash.

Now, Air France’s entire fleet of 15 Airbus A330 jets and 19 Airbus A340 jets have been fitted with the improved airspeed sensors, the SNPL pilots union said.

However, Air France, Airbus Industrie, the maker of Airbus planes, as well as the French agency investigating the crash of Air France’s Flight 447 maintain that there was no evidence yet to blame the airspeed monitors.

Despite this stance, Air France had announced that it would replace the airspeed monitors on its entire fleet of Airbus A330 and Airbus A340 planes as a precaution.

Air France’s Airbus A330 went down into the Atlantic as it was flying through storm-caused turbulence. The ill-fated plane had sent out as many as 24 automated messages about severe problems it was going through in the final minutes of its flight.

The media quoted aviation experts as saying that pitots giving false speed readings to the cockpit can result in the autopilot shutting down. In extreme cases, according to the experts, the plane might even stall or fly dangerously fast – leading to its breakup at high altitudes.

A news agency, quoting a report by Air France, said that Air France’s Airbus planes have had at least 5 incidents in 2008 in which pitot airspeed sensors malfunctioned.

Meanwhile, the search for bodies and remnants of the Air France’s Flight 447 is continuing in the Atlantic.

Media reports said that a nuclear submarine and another ship equipped with listening devices were yet to detect the ping, or the signal, of the black boxes (the flight recorders) as they were exploring a vast stretch of the high seas 1,350 kilometres (810 miles) off the coast of Brazil.

The investigators suspect that the flight recorders may be on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of about 3,500 metres (10,500 feet). Flight recorders are programmed to give off signal for one month.