More bodies found, focus on Airbus speed sensors

By Tim Hepher

PARIS, June 7 (Reuters) - Brazilian navy ships found more bodies from the Atlantic plane crash on Sunday, and Air France said it had been replacing speed sensors at the centre of the investigation into the cause of the disaster.

Air France said late on Saturday it was accelerating the replacement of speed sensors on all its Airbus long-haul planes.

It said it had begun the switchover five weeks before Monday's crash, but only after disagreeing with Airbus over the planemaker's proposal to carry out tests before replacing them.

An Airbus spokesman declined to comment and said it could only discuss the investigation with French air authorities.

"We are fully supporting the investigation with logistics, information and documentation," he said.

Investigators are considering the possibility that the speed sensors on Flight 447 may have iced up, resulting in faulty readings that caused the pilots to set the plane at a dangerous speed as it passed through violent equatorial thunderstorms.

But the head of France's air accident agency BEA said on Saturday it was too soon to say if problems with the speed sensors, known as pitot tubes, were in any way responsible.

The crash of the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people on board was the world's deadliest air disaster since 2001 and the worst in Air France's (AIRF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) 75-year history.