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NBC's Tom Costello chose Airbus safety for his Air France 447 angle. CBS' Armen Keteyian selected the recovery of 24 corpses from the ocean. ABC's Lisa Stark focused on the underwater search for the flight data recorders. Stark told us that a "wind and wave model" has been developed to work backwards from the current location of the debris to pinpoint where the jetliner entered the water one week ago. CBS' Keteyian walked us through the forensic procedures: each recovered body will be located according to the plane's seating chart and checked section-by-section for "burns, broken bones or concussions. Autopsies will reveal whether the victims died instantly in the air or drowned in the ocean, helping investigators determine whether the plane blew up, broke apart in the sky or on impact."
NBC's Costello told us that almost 1,000 Airbus jetliners worldwide are equipped with the same Pitot tube airspeed instruments that may have failed in Air France's fatal flight. He cited "one early theory" that the tubes iced over, sending inaccurate speed data to the plane's computers that confused the pilots. "Airbus urged that they be replaced nearly two years ago" yet "Air France only started in April." The pilots' union has now told its members not to fly Airbus 330s or 340s until the replacement has been made.
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