AVIATION/ REPORT SUGGESTS PITOT TUBES FAILED ON AIR FRANCE FL447

According to media reports today, AIR FRANCE Flight 447's flight recordings show the Airbus A330 "slowed to a stall" after its airspeed sensors failed while the 2 Co-Pilots were at the controls. The reports are based on 2 unidentified sources who have knowledge of the French BEA investigation. The sources said the upcoming BEA Report will reveal that the Captain was not in the cockpit when the A330's Pitot Tubes, aka speed sensors, malfunctioned, causing the autopilot to disengage over the Atlantic Ocean. A low-speed stall occurs when an aircraft slows to the point where its wings suddenly lose lift, an incident Pilots are trained to overcome. Flight 447's last automated transmissions logged faulty readings from airspeed sensors that caused the autopilot to shut down in bad weather, minutes before the crash on June 1, 2009, which killed all 228 passengers and crew onboard.  "To get out of a stall, you stick the nose down and wait for gravity to speed up the aircraft," David Learmount a former UK Royal Air Force Pilot said in the reports. Pulling out of a stall can be straightforward, "providing you realize you're in one," he said. Air France and the BEA had no comment on the media reports that 1st surfaced yesterday. The BEA plans to issue a factual statement on Friday, May 27 on its preliminary findings. A spokesman who represents the families of those who died, said the group would wait for more information before commenting on the plane's apparent stall. "We're rather concerned about this rush to blame the Pilots. They are dead and cannot defend themselves," the spokesman said. The failure of the Thales SA airspeed sensors, or Pitot tubes, reportedly occurred while the Airbus was cruising at about 35000 feet, about 4 hours after takeoff from Rio de Janeiro. At that stage of the flight, it is routine practice for the Captain to take a rest break and leave the Co-Pilots at the controls, thus the absence of the Captain from the cockpit was in of itself, not unusual. Today's report said that a stall is typically preceded by shaking and vibrating of the aircraft, and modern jets are equipped with a steering-stick shaker and audio warning to alert the Pilots. Stall recovery requires Pilots to coordinate the aircraft's angle and power to the engines to avoid aggravating the situation.