Doomed Air France plane hit sea intact

By Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters) - The Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic last month hit the water intact and at high speed but was missing for six hours before an emergency was declared, French investigators said on Thursday.

Evidence from wreckage indicates the plane was broken apart by impact with the water, which it struck facing forwards.

"The plane was not destroyed while it was in flight. It seems to have hit the surface of the water in the direction of flight and with a strong vertical acceleration," said Alain Bouillard, who is leading the investigation on behalf of France's BEA air accident board.

A food galley was found with its shelves compressed towards its base, the floor of a crew rest area was deformed and the tail fin was wrenched off the fuselage -- all in ways that suggest a violent collision with the ocean, officials said.

The cause of the crash is still not known.

Bouillard said control of the flight was supposed to have passed from air traffic controllers in Brazil to their counterparts in Senegal, but that never happened.

He said the pilots of flight AF 447 tried three times to connect to the Senegalese capital Dakar by satellite without success.

It was not until 9:30 a.m. British time, more than six hours after a flurry of error messages from the plane's electronic systems, that the plane was officially declared missing by Spain whose airspace it was due to have crossed en route to France.