Originally Posted by
cjc_td5
I think you might find that the control staff in France know more about what happened than the flight crew. I have read that the computers in these planes have continual contact with a central control centre, monitoring the many systems on board. It was quite common for the control centre to ring the pilot on the satphone and suggest a change to throttle etc or discuss a problem that the flight deck had not yet noticed themselves.
I think that is why the news reports are saying that Air France received several fault messages before the plane disappeared from the radar.
Very sad, a hell of a way to go...:o