Some wreckage from Air France Flight 447 has been recovered, including part of the tail.

Kieran Daly
Editor, Air Transport Intelligence

In one way we know a huge amount about the loss of Air France flight 447 - much more than is usual so soon after an accident. But in another, we know nothing at all.

The simple fact is that the blizzard of airworthiness directives, company memos, weather reports, technical specifications and diverse other documents that have surfaced since last week constitute entirely circumstantial evidence.

Aviation history is replete with accidents with causes utterly unrelated to what first seemed the obvious explanation.

For the investigators, the challenge is to keep an open mind while simultaneously pursuing obvious leads before evidence is lost and memories become stale.

But all that said, there are real clues to what might have happened to this Airbus A330.

Two things we know for certain: The aircraft did penetrate a region of severe weather, and the pilots were eventually confronted with a rapid series of system failures.

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