Alcatel-Lucents & Louis Dreyfus Armateurs Cable Ship Chartered to Recover Debris of the Airbus A330 of the AF447 Flight

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) and Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, partners in the joint-venture Alda Marine, announced today the signature of a contract with the Bureau Enquêtes et Analyses (BEA) for chartering their cable ship Ile de Sein. BEA will manage the mission which is part of the fifth phase of the marine operations under the ongoing investigations of the AF447 flight from Rio to Paris, which crashed on June 1st, 2009.

The campaign’s objective is to find the black boxes and recover some of wreckage of the crashed aircraft which lies at a depth of 3900 meters. The Ile de Sein will be equipped with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) manufactured by Phoenix International Inc.

The Ile de Sein, which is expected to arrive in the Canary Islands this week to load the equipment required for this mission, is a cable ship specialized in laying and maintaining submarine cable networks. It is ideally suited for this type of search and recovery missions thanks to its extremely powerful equipment allowing for dynamic positioning (assisted by GPS) which enables the vessel to maintain its position even in rough sea conditions (1 meter close up to force 7). The Ile de Sein is currently involved with her twin cable ship Ile de Bréhat in the deployment of the West Africa Cable System, (WACS) on behalf of a consortium of operators which will connect landing sites along West Africa, from South Africa to Portugal, via an undersea broadband optical connection.

” We are pleased that our submarine technologies can contribute to the search of elements helping public authorities to make things clear on this catastrophe and contributing this way to improve security. At this occasion, Alcatel-Lucent wishes to express their deep sympathy to the families of the victims,“ said Philippe Keryer, president of Alcatel-Lucent’s network activities.

Mr Alain Le Guillard, general manager of the Louis Dreyfus Armateurs Group, declared:" We are proud that the technologies developed by LDA and the experience of our crews can help find the causes of this tragedy. We express our solidarity with the families of the victims".

Solicited to assist in these types of operations, Alcatel-Lucent and the Louis Dreyfus Armateurs Group leverage a wide experience in wreck recovery. In 2004, the cable ship Ile de Batz (identical to the Ile de Sein) identified and recovered the black boxes and some debris of the jetliner that crashed in the water off Sharm El Sheikh, in Egypt. In 2007, a similar operation had been conducted by the cable ship Ile de Ré when an aircraft crashed off Moorea Island (French Polynesia)

The Louis Dreyfus Armateurs Group had already participated in the search of the wreck of the Rio-Paris flight, through its shipping subsidiary Fairmount Marine. Two of the most powerful tugboats in the world – the Fairmount Glacier and the Fairmount Expedition – had been implemented to tow hydrophones from the US Navy in June 2009.
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PHOTO: The Airbus' vertical stabilizer recovered