Cause for Air France Flight 447 Crash

Airbus, the manufacturer of the Air France aircraft that crashed into the Atlantic, has issued a warning to airlines and pilots on the protocol that team members should follow if the aircraft's airspeed indicators appear to be not working during flight.

The warning to further operators of the Airbus 330-200 aircraft comes as investigators take a closer look at the possible failure of Air France Flight 447's flight control system shortly before the crash.

The warning from Airbus does not point out that the pilots of Flight 447 did anything wrong, nor does it imply a defect in the aircraft itself, according to Reuters, but "such warnings are only sent if accident investigators have established facts that they consider important enough to pass on without delay to airlines."

Investigators examining all possible causes of Flight 447's crash know, "from the aircraft's final batch of automated messages, which were sent over a three minute period, that there was unpredictability between the different measured airspeeds shortly after the plane entered a storm zone”.

Reuters spoke with an unspecified aviation expert who said that the aircraft's airspeed indicators "work on air pressure and might provide incorrect readings if they get obstructed by objects such as ice," and that "if pilots believe the flawed readings are right, they might mistakenly alter their speed, jeopardizing their plane."

But according to a Los Angeles Times article, based on automated messages sent by the aircraft in the moments just before the crash, experts are taking a closer look at the theory that Flight 447's automated electronic flight system may have malfunctioned.

One of the plane's automated messages reported that the navigation system had failed, and that might have caused the autopilot system to disengage. But according to the Times: "The sequence of events forced the crew of Flight 447 to fly the jet manually, a tough task on an Airbus roaming at high altitude near its maximum speed, said the aviation experts. Any important change in airspeed could have caused the plane to lose lift or stability, both potentially deadly conditions".