"All hell is breaking loose."

French authorities investigating the accident that claimed the lives of 216 passengers and 12 crew members are still at the early stages of determining the cause. But preliminary evidence has already made it clear that the flight crew was battling a multitude of problems during the final four minutes.
The jetliner sent out 24 automated messages about abnormalities to Air France's maintenance department in the minutes before the crash. The airline has not released that data, but some information has been leaked to outside aviation experts, and ultimately to the news media.
The initial event, based on what is known so far, was the simultaneous failure of three sensors that determine airspeed. The sensors are called pitot tubes, a decades-old technology that pilots still depend upon. LinkHere