New evidence suggests the Air France jet which crashed into the Atlantic with 228 on-board broke up over a number of minutes, rather than in one catastrophic incident.
The Brazilian Air Force said bodies from flight AF 447 had been picked up from locations more than 50 miles apart – supporting the theory that the plane did not simply plummet into the ocean.
A reanalysis of the plane's last automatic transmissions also indicates that many parts had malfunctioned before it disappeared, and that the first parts to show problems were those measuring air speed.
Four hours into the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, the Airbus A330-200s three speed sensors, or pitot tubes started providing "incoherent" readings.
A faulty air speed indicator could mislead pilots into flying faster than the aircraft could withstand, or faster than it should be flown into turbulence two circumstances that could lead to the craft coming apart in flight.
Air France has promised to replace all first-generation Thales sensors on its 34 long-haul A330 and A340 planes "within days", but the airline's director general, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, said today that he was "not convinced" that the sensors caused the crash.
"This (replacement) programme has been accelerated because we know that when the accident happened there were problems with the speed indicators," he said, before adding: "I am not convinced that the sensors were the cause." Air France launched a programme to replace its old probes on April 27, after recording several icing problems on the speed sensors in May 2008. "We did this because we thought it would reduce the number of non-catastrophic accidents," said Mr Gourgoeon.
It now transpires that the first batch of new probes arrived just three days before the crash of flight AF 447 on June 1.
Airbus today denied a French newspaper report that it was considering grounding its fleet of A330 and A340 planes in the wake of the disaster, reiterating a European Aviation Safety Agency statement that they were "safe to fly".
Meanwhile, two terror suspects who died alongside 226 other passengers on the stricken jet have been ruled out as a cause of the disaster.
The two individuals only "shared the same name" as known Islamic radicals, posthumous security checks found.
France's interior ministry confirmed that a "deep and wide-ranging investigation has allowed us to clear them", despite the fact that their bodies are yet to be recovered.
The announcement came as the race to locate the flight's black boxes was boosted by the arrival of a French nuclear attack submarine.
Emeraude, nicknamed "golden ears" due to its highly powerful sonar, will trawl 13 square miles a day, in an attempt to pick up the boxes' acoustic beacons – whose signal will fade in three weeks' time.
A tugboat fitted with underwater listening devices has also reached the crash site.
If they find a signal, a French mini-sub already used to search the Titanic will be deployed to recover the boxes with a robotic arm.
The voice and data recorders could provide vital information to help unravel the cause of the worst aviation accident since 2001.
Brazilian searchers in charge of recovering floating bodies and debris say strong ocean currents have led them to widen the surface search area into Senegalese waters.
The number of bodies recovered has reached 41.
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