PARIS, (Reuters) – The Air France plane that crashed  into the Atlantic last month hit the water intact and at high  speed but was missing for six hours before an emergency was  declared, French investigators said yesterday.

Evidence from wreckage indicates the plane was broken apart  by impact with the water, which it struck facing forwards.

“The plane was not destroyed while it was in flight. It  seems to have hit the surface of the water in the direction of  flight and with a strong vertical acceleration,” said Alain  Bouillard, who is leading the investigation on behalf of  France’s BEA air accident board.

A food galley was found with its shelves compressed towards  its base, the floor of a crew rest area was deformed and the  tail fin was wrenched off the fuselage — all in ways that  suggest a violent collision with the ocean, officials said.

The cause of the crash is still not known.
Bouillard said control of the flight was supposed to have  passed from air traffic controllers in Brazil to their  counterparts in Senegal, but that never happened.

He said the pilots of flight AF 447 tried three times to  connect to the Senegalese capital Dakar by satellite without  success.

It was not until 0830 GMT, more than six hours after a  flurry of error messages from the plane’s electronic systems,  that the plane was officially declared missing by Spain whose  airspace it was due to have crossed en route to France.

Asked whether the alleged air traffic fumble may have  delayed the search operation, Bouillard said, “It is one of the  subjects of our investigation: why so much time elapsed between  the last radio contact and declaration of an emergency