AVIATION/ ALL DATA INTACT FROM AIR FRANCE FL447 RECORDERS

The French BEA said today that they had succeeded in downloading all of the data from the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder from AIR FRANCE Flight 447. The retrieval of the data is a critical breakthrough that could finally resolve the mystery behind why the Airbus A330 went down into the Atlantic on June 1, 2009, killing all 228 passengers and crew onboard. "Following operations to open, extract, clean and dry the memory cards from the flight recorders, BEA safety investigators were able to download the data over the weekend," the air investigation agency said in a statement. "These downloads gathered all of the data from the Flight Data Recorder, as well as the whole recording of the last 2 hours of the flight from the Cockpit Voice Recorder". Any information gleaned from the Recorders will take months to process, investigators have said. The Report into the cause of the crash itself will not be ready before early 2012, although an Interim Report will be published in the summer, the BEA said today. The FDR was retrieved from the wreckage May 1, while the CVR was similarly recovered on May 3. The BEA also reported that salvage teams had successfully raised dozens of pieces of the plane, including its engines, most of the cockpit and several onboard computers. Still missing so far from the trove of debris, however, are the 3 Pitot Tubes, that are believed to have failed. The BEA said that even though they did not have the Pitot Tubes, they do not believe physical inspection of the sensors would yield critical new information. Meanwhile, the French police were expected to determine later this week whether traces of DNA could be recovered from the bodies of 2 crash victims recovered this month from the wreckage 2.5  miles below the surface.  Underwater cameras have located the remains of around 50 people amid the debris, however it is unlikely that all of those bodies could be raised. Based on the condition and position of each body, police specialists would be forced to determine the possibility of recovering each corpse on a case-by-case basis. A Paris court is also considering a request from the families not to raise any more bodies. It remains unclear whether a definitive identification of recovered remains will be possible. Forensics experts said that, after being immersed in salt water for 2 years, most traces of DNA would have been leached away. The best hope for identification would come from the marrow of larger bones from a victim’s leg or pelvis. “What remains of any DNA would be in the center of the bone,” said the head of the forensic institute of the French national police agency. “But this is the first time sampling has been attempted under such conditions".