The report said the pilot sent a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time saying he was flying through an area of ?CBs? — black, electrically charged cumulo-nimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning. Satellite data has shown that towering thunderheads were sending 160 km/h updrafts into the jet?s flight path at that time.
Ten minutes later, the plane sent a burst of automatic messages, indicating the autopilot had disengaged, the ?fly-by-wire? computer system had been switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm also sounded, indicating the deterioration of flight systems, according to the report.
Three minutes after that, more automatic messages indicated the failure of two other fundamental systems pilots use to monitor air speed, altitude and direction. Then, a cascade of other electrical failures in systems that control the main flight computer and wing spoilers.
The report repeats a detail previously released by Brazil?s Air Force: that the last message came at 11:14 p.m., indicating loss of air pressure and electrical failure. The newspaper said this could mean sudden de-pressurization, or that the plane was already plunging into the ocean.
Posted 56 minutes ago Updated 18 minutes ago
French planes have been scouring the area searching for wreckage. (AFP)
Brazilian officials say debris they thought was from an Air France crash in the Atlantic was in fact sea "trash", adding to the uncertainties surrounding the jet tragedy.
"Up to now, no material from the plane has been recovered," Brigadier Ramon Cardoso, director of Brazilian air traffic control, told reporters in the northeastern city of Recife.
Items, including a cargo pallet and two buoys, pulled from the ocean early Thursday - which Brifadier Cardoso himself had initially said came from downed Air France flight AF 477 - actually came from another source, most certainly a ship.
"We confirm that the pallet found is not part of the debris of the plane. It's a pallet that was in the area, but considered more to be trash," he said.
The pallet was made of wood, and the Air France Airbus A330 did not have any wooden pallets on board. "That's how we can confirm that the pallet isn't part of the remains of the aircraft," he said.
He also said a big oil slick originally thought to come from the plane probably also came from a ship passing through the zone, 1,000 kilometres off Brazil's north-east coast.
Despite the mistake over the debris, it appeared the Brazilian navy was in the right general area where the Air France came down.
Air force planes on Tuesday and Wednesday spotted items in the water, including a seat from a plane and a seven-metre chunk of what looked like fuselage, that Defence Minister Nelson Jobim said were beyond a doubt from the French jet.
Air France flight AF 477 came down early on Monday as it was transporting 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
Speculation over what caused the accident has ranged from a massive, lightning-packed storm in the area at the time, to turbulence, to pilot error or a combination of factors.
No mayday call was received from the plane, just a series of data transmissions signaling it had lost power and then had either broken up or gone into a fatal dive.
Memorial services were held on Wednesday in Paris and Thursday in Rio for those on board the plane, though no bodies have been spotted at sea.
Many relatives of the passengers attended, but others declined, refusing to give up hope that somehow, despite the evidence, their loved ones had survived.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said after speaking at the Rio ceremony "it will probably take some time" before the reason for the catastrophe - the worst in Air France's history - would be known.
The point in the Atlantic where the plane came down is "immensely deep," between 3,000 and 4,000 metres, complicating the search for the black boxes, he said.
Mr Jobim on Wednesday called an explosion on board the downed plane "improbable" based on the presence of slicks at the crash site, inferring that the fuel would have burned away in a blast or fire.
But with the biggest of those slicks now found to be oil from a ship, that hypothesis seemed undermined.
Also, a Spanish pilot who was flying at high altitude some distance behind the doomed Air France jetliner said he saw an "intense flash of white light," according to his airline, Air Comet.
A co-pilot and passenger also saw the bright light, according to a report initially given to Spain's El Mundo newspaper and confirmed by AFP.
"Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds," the unidentified captain wrote
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