Missing Air France jet sent 24 error messages

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Dom Antonio Orleans e Braganca, member of Brazil's long-defunct monarchy, prays for his son Pedro Luiz de Orleans e Braganca, a passenger aboard ill-fated Air France Flight 447, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. — AFP

PARIS, June 6 (AFP): The Air France jet that crashed into the Atlantic sent out 24 automatic error messages in its final moments as its systems-including the autopilot-shut down, investigators said Saturday.
The director of the French air accident investigation agency, Paul-Louis Arslanian, said that it was impossible to tell from the signals whether the doomed crew had shut off the autopilot or whether it cut out.
Meanwhile, the head of the French agency leading the probe into the crash of Air France Flight 447 says signals from the plane before it disappeared show its autopilot wasn't on.
Paul-Louis Arslanian said it was not clear if the autopilot had been switched off by the pilots or had stopped working because it received conflicting airspeed readings.
Plane manufacturer Airbus says the probe found the flight received inconsistent readings from different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm.
Probe chief Alain Bouillard says "we also saw messages that show the automatic pilot wasn't working."
Arslanian says investigators are searching a zone of several hundred square miles for the debris.