Probe: Flight 447 autopilot not on before crash

I / Paris June 6, 2009, 17:05 IST

Signals sent by Air France Flight 447 before it disappeared show its autopilot was not on, the head of the French agency leading the investigation into the crash of 447 said today.

Agency head Paul-Louis Arslanian said it was not clear if the autopilot had been switched off by the pilots or had stopped working because it received conflicting airspeed readings.

Plane manufacturer Airbus says the investigation found the flight received inconsistent readings from different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm.

Alain Bouillard, head of the investigation into the crash, told reporters that, "we also saw messages that show the automatic pilot wasn't working."Arslanian said investigators are analysing 24 messages sent automatically by the plane during the last minutes of the flight.

He said investigators are searching a zone of several hundred square kilometers for the debris.

It is vital to locate a beacon called a "pinger" that should be attached to the cockpit voice and data recorders, now presumed to be deep in the Atlantic, he said.

"We have no guarantee that the pinger is attached to the recorders," Arslanian said.

Holding up a pinger in the palm of his hand, he said: "This is what we are looking for in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."