Air France plane wreckage unlikely to be recovered

Authorities are most unlikely to recover all parts of the Air France plane that went down June 1 in the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people aboard, an official with France’s air accident investigation board said Wednesday. “It’s virtually certain that the entire aircraft will not be recovered. All the bodies which are or will be found will be recovered, but I do not know how many.

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A Carnival of Provocations as Gaddafi Visits Rome

When Muammar Gaddafi comes to town, the first questions facing his hosts is where to pitch his tent. Having watched the stir caused in Paris and Moscow last year by the Libyan leader pitching a Bedouin-style portable chateau in the heart of each capital, the authorities in Rome were well prepared for the four-day visit of the Colonel and his retinue of 300.

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Air France Flight 447: Can the Crash Be Solved Without the Black Box?

As a French nuclear submarine arrived off the coast of Brazil to join the effort to locate the black box from Air France Flight 447 on Thursday, aviation experts stressed the necessity of recovering those cockpit recorders in order to learn what exactly brought down the Airbus A330 and the 228 people on board. In past inquiries into airline disasters, investigators have been able to figure out the cause by piecing together clues from the wreckage itself, sometimes without information from the black box. But after 10 days of searching, the authorities combing what’s believed to be Flight 447’s crash site, some 700 miles out to sea, have come up with only 41 bodies and relatively little of the plane’s wreckage.

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Air France CEO: Don’t assume sensors caused crash

There should be no assumed link between on-board speed sensors and the crash of Air France Flight 447 into the Atlantic Ocean last week, the airline’s chief executive said Thursday. “I am not convinced that the sensors are the cause of the accident,” said Air France Chief Executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon. Still, he said, the airline will continue with a program, begun just days before the crash, to replace the sensors on its Airbus A330s, the same type of plane that crashed June 1.

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French sub joins plane crash search

A French nuclear submarine joined the hunt Wednesday for the "black box" flight data recorder and other wreckage of Air France Flight 447 as Brazilian air force and navy crews continued to pull bodies from the Atlantic. France is leading the investigation into what caused last week’s accident when the Paris-bound flight from Rio de Janeiro plunged into the sea off the Brazilian coast with 228 passengers and crew on board. The French nuclear submarine Emeraude began patrolling the area Wednesday morning, the French defense ministry said.

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Exhausted Federer quits Wimbledon warm-up

French Open champion Roger Federer dramatically withdrew from the Halle Open tournament on Tuesday saying he was "overwhelmed and exhausted" after his Paris triumph. Federer beat Swede Robin Soderling in Sunday’s Roland Garros final to complete his Grand Slam haul and equal the record 14 ‘major’ wins by Pete Sampras. He traditionally uses the German follow-up event as his warm-up for Wimbledon which starts on June 22

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Pilots’ union: Air France to replace sensors soon

Air France has agreed to replace within days sensors on all of its Airbus A330 and A340 airplanes, parts that are suspected of being involved in last week’s crash, a pilots’ union said Tuesday. Air France said Saturday that it had begun replacing the sensors throughout its fleet in April.

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