Post date: May 02, 2011 11:52:49 PM
Relatives of the 228 passengers of an Air France flight that crashed two years ago request that a neutral country carry out investigations as flight data recorders are hauled up from the depths of the Atlantic.
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (MAY 2, 2011) REUTERS - Brazilian families of the Air France crash victims said on Monday (May 2) they want a neutral country, and not France, to analyze a flight data recorder that was pulled from the Atlantic Ocean on the weekend.
French investigators said on Sunday (May 1) that deep sea search parties found one of two black boxes from the Air France flight 447 that crashed off the coast of Brazil in 2009, reviving hopes of understanding what caused the tragedy.Relatives of the Brazilian victims required a country not involved in the accident to assess the black box data, alleging that France could make a biased investigation, considering it owns both companies involved in the probe -- Air France and Airbus, which is part of the European consortium EADS.
Head of the victims' families association, Nelson Marinho, said the recorders should be analyzed by a country like the United States.
"We asked for the black box to be taken to a neutral country and we suggested the United States because they have more advanced technologies and, this way, France could be impartial. France is the owner of Airbus and Air France so it is not appropriate for it to analyze the black boxes," he said.
The fourth round of search efforts was launched in March and French investigators have located chunks of the plane's wreckage, two flight data recorders and bodies in a vast search radius of some 10,000 square kilometers.
Officials from France's BEA air accident inquiry office said it was too early to say whether the black box, which records data from the plane's instruments but no voices, would yield any information.
They also said that search robots had already dived back to the Atlantic sea floor to try to find the second black box, which contains voice and sound recordings from the cockpit.
Marinho, a retired machinery mechanic who transformed his home into a relatives' association, has spent the past two years hoping to bury his son Marcelo, whose body was never recovered.
He said the Brazilian families hoped search teams would also recover the victims' bodies.
"There are still bodies trapped by seat belts and the Brazilian families want to end with their lives. How do you end with a life? Organizing a decent burial for their relatives," he said.
The Airbus A330-200 plane plunged into the Atlantic en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro in June 2009, killing all 228 passengers and crew on board after the flight hit stormy weather. Only some 50 bodies were found then.
Speculation about what caused the accident has focused on the possible icing up of the aircraft's Thales speed sensors, which seemed to give inconsistent readings before communication was lost.
Depending on how much data can be retrieved and how clearly it pinpoints the cause of the crash, lawyers say information from the black boxes could lead to a flood of liability claims.
Any fresh conclusions on the cause of the crash will also be fed into an ongoing judicial probe in which Airbus and Air France have both been placed under formal investigation.