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PARIS, France (CNN) -- Air France Flight 447 sent out 24 automated error messages -- including one saying the aircraft's autopilot had disengaged -- before it vanished with 228 people on board, aviation investigators said Saturday.
But even as they analyzed the error messages and satellite images of the doomed flight's path, investigators said they still have a lot of work to determine what caused the plane to go down.
"I would just like to ask you to bear in mind that all of this is dynamic and there are a lot of question marks," Paul-Louis Arslanian, head of France's accident investigation bureau told reporters.
"We don't know how the aircraft entered the water. We don't know how these pieces of debris entered into the water and that you have to take into account the current ... and the shape of the ocean floor."
The error messages suggest that the plane may have been flying too fast or too slow through the stormy weather it encountered before the crash, officials said.
I. Crew error
I1. Flying into severe weather
The crew flies directly into the most severe part of the storm
Supportive evidence: Tim Vasquez's analysis of the weather system indicates that it would have been very hard for AF447 to avoid the weather system alltogether, but there is no evidence to suggest that they flew directly into the worst part.
Open questions: Exact flight path is needed.
Verdict: They did fly into the weather, but it is unknown if this was avoidable or if they flew to the worst part. Note that in combination with another problem, such as radar failure the likelihood of this theory would be much higher.
References: Assumed flight path from the BBC article news.bbc.co.uk... Tim Vasquez's analysis www.weathergraphics.com...