AF447 Recovery of corpses from seabed.

It seems the families are divided as to attempts to recover corpses. It would be difficult but one has already been recovered so it is certainly not impossible. I doubt the corpses have much evidentiary value. The Brazilian mortuary was overwhelmed but would not permit the French doctors to perform autopsies. The Brazilian medical examiner made comments and drew conclusions well beyond his sphere of expertise even suggesting that the passengers had assumed crash positions prior to impact. Given the large number of passengers who were not belted-in and the fact that the galley had not been secured it was quite likely that there had been no instructions to even fasten seat belts much less an instruction concerning severe turbulence and certainly no instruction to assume crash positions.

The damage and injuries on the earlier recovered corpses all show major impact forces on the underside of an intact fuselage. Nothing reflects instructions to cabin crew or passengers regarding imminent impact.

There has been alot of discussion regarding overspeed conditions and underspeed conditions. At 35,000 feet that "coffin corner" is still a pretty wide window. And a stall could begin at six or seven degrees at that altitude. Presumably the iced-up pitot tubes would create a differential airspeed reading that was well beyond the computer's parameters. Error messages would be sent as the flight director computers cut out and placed the plane in Alternate Law mode. If speed either decayed too far or increased to far, a stall would take place but it seems crew awareness and crew actions should have been able to deal with it. Surely from 35,000 to 0 would have taken some time. Initially the French searchers felt they should estimate continued flight along intended course for some time beyond the Last Known Position. Although this may have taken place and then been followed by a course reversal that was either commanded or most likely uncommanded, it is quite possible that descent was rapid and largely devoid of forward motion. I can only envision direct flight into a powerful supercell as doing that.

I look forward to the CVR showing us why there were no WX related course changes to thread the plane around the intense storms. I look forward to the FDR analysis even more, but I don't see the corpse recovery as providing critical information.