Air crash  scene

    An investigation into the mysterious 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 into
    the southern Atlantic Ocean will also include a probe into Air France-KLM, the
    airline's attorney said Friday.
    A French magistrate already is investigating Airbus for involuntary
    manslaughter in connection with the crash, according to the airline manufacturer and a court spokeswoman. However, Fernand Garnault, the attorney for Air France-KLM, said he doesn't know why the airline is part of the investigation.
    He said the magistrate is looking into a problem involving pitot tubes, which
    measure a plane's air speed. Still, "there is nothing new in this case
    and there is no proof that the pitot tubes caused the crash," Garnault told CNN.
    Judge Sylvie Zimmerman is presiding over the inquiry into the
    Airbus-made plane,
    court spokeswoman Sylvie Polack told CNN on Thursday. The plane fell into the
    sea while traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing all 228 people aboard.
    Thomas Enders, CEO of Airbus, disagreed with the decision to commence the
    investigation.
    "On behalf of Airbus, I have noted the absence of facts supporting
    this step and
    stated our strong disagreement," Enders said in a written statement.
    "Airbus maintains that the focus should be on finding the cause of
    this accident
    and making sure it can never happen again. Airbus will continue to support the
    investigation, including the continued search for the flight
    recorders, which is
    the only sure way to know the truth," he said.
    Investigators have not yet established what caused the crash, and
    large parts of
    the plane -- including both flight recorders -- have never been found, despite
    an extensive search operation that included a French navy submarine.
    The plane went down in stormy weather, and most of the bodies were never
    recovered.
    Studies of the debris and bodies that were found led France's air accident
    investigation agency, the BEA, to conclude the plane hit the water belly first,
    essentially intact.
    Oxygen masks were not deployed, indicating that the cabin did not depressurize,
    the BEA revealed in a 2009 report.
    Automated messages sent from the plane in the minutes before the crash showed there were problems measuring air speed, the investigators said, though they said that alone was not enough to cause the disaster.
    The area where the plane went down is far out in the Atlantic -- two to four
    days by ship from the nearest ports in Brazil or Senegal in West Africa. The
    rough underwater terrain includes mountains and valleys, the BEA said.