Air France to replace speed sensors

Union urges pilots not to fly A330
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By Crispian Balmer
PARIS (Reuters) - Air France has said all its flights using long-haul Airbus jets will be equipped immediately with new speed sensors after last week's disaster over the Atlantic, a pilots' union said on Tuesday.
The pitot tubes that gauge speed have become the focus of an investigation into the crash after messages showed they provided "inconsistent" data to the pilots and might have played a role in the June 1 crash that killed 228 people.
One Air France union urged its pilots to stop flying Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft until the old sensors were replaced and the company has since committed itself to a swift change-out, a union official said.
"Air France has provided us with an extremely proactive and very accelerated replacement program," said Erick Derivry, spokesman for the main SNPL pilots union.
"From today, all Air France A330 and A340 flights will use planes equipped with at least two new sensors out of three (on board)," he told France Info radio.
Air France, which has 19 A340s and 15 A330s, declined to comment.
The Air France A330 crashed en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris last week after flying into stormy weather.
MORE BODIES RECOVERED
The Brazilian air force and navy said on Tuesday that search teams had recovered 28 bodies from the Atlantic and moved some of them to the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil's northeastern coast, which is being used as a base for the search operations.
Crews on Monday removed a large object from the water that an aviation expert identified as part of the plane's tail, but officials would not comment on what it was.
Analysts say identifying the wreckage could help establish what happened, but that a complete understanding of the mysterious crash will hinge on finding flight recorders that may lie on the very deep and rugged ocean floor.
A French nuclear submarine with advanced sonar equipment is due to arrive on Thursday to search for the aircraft's "black box" recorders.
The jet sent 24 automated messages in its final minutes on June 1, detailing a rapid series of system failures.
The small Alter union, which represents 15 Air France pilots, said in a statement that the first of these messages pointed to a problem with the pitot tubes.
ICED-UP TUBES Continued...
Source: Reuters