Fears over worldwide Airbus fleet
Published: Thursday, 2 July 2009, 1:51PM
French authorities will today publish the first official report into the Air France plane crash in the Atlantic which claimed 228 lives.
It has been reported that Airbus is expected to face calls to ground its worldwide fleet of airliners.
Five Britons and three Irish nationals were among those aboard the Airbus A330 aircraft which was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when all contact was lost in the early hours of June 1.
But with hope of finding the plane's "black box" flight recorders almost gone, UK aviation experts fear that the exact cause of the disaster may never be known.
The experts also reckon that today's report - from France's air investigations and analysis office - may not be able to throw much more light on the cause of the crash than is already in the public domain.
What is known is that the flight crew reported they were going through an area of bad weather.
After that there were a series of automatic electronic messages from the plane which were received by Air France and which indicated multiple problems with the aircraft.
There has been speculation that the Pitot tubes which indicate just how fast the aircraft is going were faulty.
A330 aircraft have suffered Pitot tube problems in the past and Air France has now replaced them on all its Airbus A330 and A340 aircraft.
Airbus 330/340 fleet
Biggest operators
66 Lufthansa
47 Cathay Pacific, Emirates
35 Air France
33 Ilfc, Qatar Airways
32 Northwest Airlines
30 China Eastern Airlines
26 Air China
25 Swiss International Airlines, Virgin Atlantic
24 Thai Airways International
Other British operators
10 Thomas Cook Airlines
3 bmi British Midland
2 Monarch Airlines