Airbus crash 'not caused by breaking up in flight'

The Air France Airbus that crashed off Brazil killing 228 people, among them three Irish nationals, did not break up in flight but plunged vertically into the Atlantic, experts said today.

Alain Bouillard, leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident investigation agency BEA, also said life jackets found among the wreckage of the plane were not inflated.

Mr Bouillard said the search for the plane’s black boxes has been extended by 10 days and will continue until July 10.

Mr Bouillard said speed sensors were a factor but were not the cause of the crash of Air France flight 447.

One of the automatic messages sent by the plane indicates it was receiving incorrect speed information from the external monitoring instruments, which could destabilise the plane’s control systems. Experts have suggested those external instruments, called Pitot tubes, might have iced over.