Bodies and Wreckage Found From 2009 Air France Crash
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42414150...ld_news-europe

Hopefully they can find the recorders that have eluded investigators for so long.

Also, I would hope this will bring closure to at least some of the victim's families.

Yes, and you have to admit, it is impressive they found it so soon into the new search. Still, with the millions spent on finding this plane, you really do have to appreciate the immense complexity of this effort. To be honest I was skeptical they would ever find it, so this is quite a major discovery. With criminal proceedings opened into the case just recently, here's to hoping that this will finally give families the answers they real answers about what happened and who's at fault.

And I probably shouldn't read into this too much, but the condition of the wreckage could be an interesting clue. The fact that you have at least a large fuselage section intact, and engines apparently nearby, from a plane that plummeted 40,000 feet through the air and then sank another 10,000 ft in water, could certainly be saying something about the manner in which it crashed. Certainly a plane hitting water head-on at full speed wouldn't have left that kind of wreckage...

So, they're still there in their seats? It's hard to believe they wouldn't have deteriorated to some extent by now. :hmmm:

So, do you think they should leave the bodies there in their final resting place, or do you think it is important to recover the bodies?

I always ponder this question when an old wreck is found like a submarine or a sunken ship.

Honestly, I don't know what the "moral" answer would be. :nope:

Sounds like they'll be making that decision with the families. For all the effort it would take to raise a few, they might as well bring up all they can find.

Well at 10,000 feet, in that location, maybe there is not a lot of life. Wouldn't the pressure and the cold help preserve the bodies?

10,000 feet is the boundary between the Bathypelagic zone and the deeper Abyssal Zone.

Might take the life down there a while to move over to where the "new" food is. The bodies might be in pretty good shape, but hardly untouched though.

Good point. I guess I always think of those empty shoes on the bottom with Titanic where they think a body used to lie. But that picture was taken after Titanic had spent eighty years on the bottom.

http://www.oocities.com/thetitanicsite/images/boots.jpg

That's something I wondered about. IIRC both Air France and Airbus are being sued. Based on the fact that the reasons for the crash are not (yet?) known, neither can be proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Combine this with the fact that you are "innocent until proven guilty" and I wonder how the heck they plan on getting either of them convicted of anything.

Anyway let's hope the wreckage, and the black boxes if they find them, will shed a new light on the case.

This, and the doll's head are probably the most haunting, spooky images I can immediately recall from Ballard's expedition, with the teacup perched upright atop the boiler in the debris field being another.

And, like you said, 80 years in the deep; yet much of Titanic's wood was identifiable, so who knows? This was more southerly than the wreck of Titanic, maybe that had some bearing on what kind of life is down there. An amazing world we live in, that's for sure.

Here's hoping this can lead to some kind of closure for the families of the lost.