Airline Chiefs Dismiss Safety Fears Over A330 Jets

Search crews have recovered 24 bodies so far and found the vertical stabilizer from the tail section of the A330-200 plane, which could help narrow the hunt for the black boxes to determine why the jet went down. The data and voice recorders are located in the fuselage near the tail section of the jet.

Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy told reporters late Monday on the sidelines of the conference that the A330-200 was a "reliable" plane and that it was too early to conclude otherwise until investigations were completed. Leahy left Kuala Lumpur later Monday and other officials from Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, declined to comment pending investigations.

Investigators are considering the possibility that the plane's external speed monitors — called Pitot tubes — may have iced over and given dangerously false readings to cockpit computers in a thunderstorm.

David Epstein, Qantas Airways General Manager for Government and Corporate Affairs, said two companies manufacture the external monitors suitable for the A330 planes — France's Thales Group and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Goodrich Corp.

The Air France plane uses sensors made by Thales while Qantas uses those by Goodrich for its 28 A330 planes, he said.