Air France crash: What could have caused it?

Was it a lightning strike, an electrical failure, or violent turbulence? Or a combination of all three that brought down the Air France plane?

As possible debris of Air France 447 surfaced 1000 km off the coast of Brazil on Tuesday, several theories emerged on what could have caused the crash that killed 228 people on board. The speculations are:

• Lightning crippled the plane's weather radar
• The electrical systems failed totally
• The pilots couldn't react quickly enough
• The plane broke into pieces as it entered the eye of a massive storm

Investigators are now intensely focused on locating the flight recorders or the black box of the plane. The crucial equipment holds the key to finding the reasons behind the accident.
Recovering the black box will be tough since this area in Atlantic may be as deep as 4700 metres.

Brazilian Air Force planes found what appeared to be parts of the Airbus 330 plane in this area. It will take months to arrive at any conclusion but investigators are hoping to get initial reports by June-end.