Air France "Black Box" Signals Located

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/06/23/world/international-uk-france-crash.html

Signals from the flight data recorders of the Air France airliner that crashed into the Atlantic killing all 228 people on board have been located, Le Monde newspaper said on its website Tuesday.
An Air France spokeswoman said she could not confirm the report. The Transport Ministry and the air accident investigation office could not be reached immediately for comment.
Le Monde said French naval vessels had picked up a weak signal from the flight recorders and that a mini submarine had been dispatched Monday to try and find the "black boxes" on the bottom of the rugged ocean floor.
[...]

Locator beacons, known as "pingers," on the flight recorders send an electronic impulse every second for at least 30 days. The signal can be heard up to 2 km (1.2 miles) away.

[...]
French vessels involved in the search operation include a nuclear submarine with advanced sonar equipment and a research ship equipped with mini submarines.
The remote location in the Atlantic as well as the depth and surface of the ocean floor have made the search especially difficult and the wreckage could lie anywhere between a depth of 1 km (0.6 miles) and 4 km (2.5 miles).

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No new clues on causes of Air France crash

http://www.theprovince.com/clues+causes+France+crash/1704625/story.html

French investigators have no further clues on what caused the crash of an Air France jetliner in the Atlantic two weeks ago, the head of France's investigation agency said on Wednesday.
More information might be available in the coming days, Paul-Louis Arslanian told reporters, urging the public to show "a lot of patience" while the search for wreckage and bodies continued in the Atlantic Ocean.
He was speaking at a news conference on the search efforts and what investigators called "unfavorable conditions" in the remote area of ocean where the Airbus A330 crashed en route from Brazil to Paris on June 1[June 1? 2 weeks have passed already... Any explanation, after so much time has passed, has to be looked at with suspicion!].
The investigation agency has so far said data transmitted from the plane before it crashed indicated unreliable speed readings from the aircraft's sensors, but that it was too early to say whether this contributed to the accident.
All 228 people on board the plane died in the crash, making it the worst disaster in the history of Air France.

[Source: theprovince.com]

Debris removed from the Atlantic is not from the airplane of Air France, says Aeronautics

http://www.doomdaily.com/2009/debris-removed-from-the-atlantic-is-not-from-the-airplane-of-air-france-says-aeronautics/

A Brazilian news site is reporting the wreckage found is not from the Air France plane.
“The BAF (Brazilian Air Force) informed in the night of this thursday that the removed destroços of the Atlantic in this thursday are not of the Airbus A-330 of the Air France, that disappeared on board in the last sunday (31) with 228 people. In accordance with Brigadier General Ramon Borges Cardoso, director of the Decea (managing of the Department of Control of the Airspace), “no material of the airplane was collected”.
“Not, no material of the airplane was collected. What we saw they had been material pertaining to an aircraft who had been left because of the priority of searches of bodies. But until the moment no piece of the aircraft was recouped”, affirmed.” Sorry for bad translation to English.
So what does this wreckage belong to? [And more importantly, where's Air France 447, the A330 jet, and its passengers???]

[Source: doomdaily.com]

[More sources agree... BBC News!]
Debris 'not from Air France jet'

Debris recovered from the Atlantic by Brazilian search teams is "sea trash" and not from a lost Air France jet, a Brazilian air force official has said.
Brig Ramon Borges Cardoso contradicted earlier reports, saying "no material from the plane has been recovered".
Teams found buoys and a wooden pallet and spotted a fuel slick, and are now searching for an airline seat and a chunk of metal seen earlier this week.

Read more...

[...and yet another... CNN!]
Brazilian air force says debris was not from Air France crash

The Brazilian air force said that debris picked up Thursday near where officials believe Air France Flight 447 crashed Monday into the Atlantic Ocean was not from the plane.
"It has been verified that the material did not belong to the plane," Brigadier Ramon Borges Cardoso told reporters in Recife about the material recovered Thursday. "It is a pallet of wood that is utilized for transport. It is used in planes, but on this flight to Paris, there was no wooden pallet."

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[Weird how no one is asking the really importat question: Where's Air France 447, the A330 jet, and its passengers???]