The ministry said there were 600 bits of undamaged technical information, such as speed and height, on the recovered flight data recorder. It has to be analyzed and compared with information gathered earlier from the other black box, the voice recorder. A judicial and aeronautics expert said the loss of control points toward a ruptured turbine blade as the cause. Such an inquiry can call witnesses and last for months. It will look at whether to bring charges and against whom.
Involuntary homicide is defined as a negligent killing punishable by up to three years in prison.
Technical investigations should focus on turbine blades that rotate and compress air inside both engines on the left wing, including the No. 2 engine that caught fire shortly before takeoff, Raymond Auffray, an engineer and aeronautics adviser to Paris' Court of Appeal, said in the La Croix newspaper Thursday. Officials said the fire that consumed the Concorde seconds after its takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport probably started in the No. 2 engine. The lack of control of the aircraft signals a ruptured turbine blade, Auffray said, which would cause the engine to destruct. Air France said mechanics had worked on engine No. 2 just before the takeoff. But government officials said it was too early to say if the repairs were linked to the cause of the accident.