MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Air France accelerating replacement of Airbus speed monitors

At least 17 bodies have been retrieved by naval vessels north of Fernando do Noronha.

Air France has said it is accelerating replacement of speed monitors on Airbus planes following the disappearance of a jet over the Atlantic six days ago.

The French airline said it had noticed problems arising from icing on the monitors last year and had begun changing them in April. There has been speculation that faulty data on the old-type sensors may have caused the crash of the Rio de Janeiro-Paris flight with 228 people on board.

Investigators say that sensors on board the missing Airbus 330 were providing “inconsistent data” in the minutes before it went missing.

On Saturday, Air France said that in May 2008 it had begun noticing “incidents of loss of airspeed information during cruise flight” on its A330s and A340s jets - although only a “small number” of incidents had been reported.

The airline said it then contacted Airbus, who sent a recommendation to replace the monitors.

However, Air France stressed that the manufacturers had not made this a safety requirement.

The statement said that “without prejudging a link with the causes of the accident, Air France has accelerated this [replacement] programme”. It added that this did not necessarily mean the aircraft was not safe to fly.

French investigators also warned against drawing early conclusions.

In related news from Kuala Lumpur Singapore Airlines CEO Chew Choon Seng was quoted saying that the Airbus A330 was a good plane.

“It's a safe plane, it's a good plane”, he said adding that “We should not jump to conclusions”.

Chew Choon Seng is participating at a IATA meeting where airlines are considering prospects for the industry in 2009.

“Singapore Airlines will honour all existing contracts for plane orders” said CEO Chew Choon Seng. As of March, Singapore Airlines had orders for 16 A330-200s and for 33 other Airbus planes.

Korean Air which also has A330s said the aircraft were good from a technical point of view. “It’s a good plane. I think it’s an isolated case” said Korean Air CEO Cho Yang Ho from Kuala Lumpur. He added the company has no plans to ground the aircrafts.

Meantime the Brazilian Navy reported that more bodies have been recovered from the Atlantic in the area where Flight 447 was lost, bringing the total number to 17.

Dozens of pieces of debris from the Air France plane were also picked up by Brazilian and French ships. They were found some 1,000km north-east of Brazil's Fernando de Noronha islands.

The remains will be taken by ship to the nearby archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, before being moved to the Brazilian city of Recife, where a temporary mortuary has been established.

Relatives of those on board the AF 447 flight have already provided DNA to help in the identification process.

A Brazilian navy spokesman said search crews were working despite poor weather.

He said about 100 objects had been spotted in the crash zone, including seats with the Air France logo and oxygen masks.

A total of six ships and 14 planes from France and Brazil are involved in the operation.