Airlines Replace Monitors After Air France Crash

"That would reinforce the idea that the plane broke up in flight," Waldock said. "If it hits intact, everything shatters in tiny pieces."

Goelz said the faulty airspeed readings and the fact that the vertical stabilizer was sheared from the jet could be related.

The Airbus A330-200 has a "rudder limiter" that restricts the movement of the rudder at high speeds. If it were to move too far while traveling too fast, it could shear off and take the vertical stabilizer with it.

"If you had a wrong speed being fed to the computer by the Pitot tube, it might allow the rudder to over-travel," Goelz said.

And could the loss of a rudder or stabilizer bring down a jet?

"Absolutely," Goelz said. "You need a rudder. And you need the (rudder) limiter on there to make sure the rudder doesn't get torn off or cause havoc with the plane's aerodynamics."

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Marco Sibaja reported from Recife and Greg Keller from Paris. Associated Press writers contributing to this report included Federico Escher in Fernando de Noronha, Brazil; Alan Clendenning in Sao Paulo; Slobodan Lekic in Brussels; Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur; Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Harry Weber in Atlanta and Cecile Brisson in Paris.