Probe finds intact Air France jet slammed belly first into Atlantic

AN INTACT Air France Flight 447 slammed belly first into the Atlantic Ocean at a high speed, a top French investigator has said, adding that problems with the plane’s speed sensors were not the direct cause of the crash.

Alain Bouillard, who is leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident agency BEA, says the speed sensors, called Pitot tubes, were “a factor but not the only one”.

“It is an element but not the cause,” Bouillard told a news conference in Le Bourget outside Paris. “Today we are very far from establishing the causes of the accident.”