Aviation investigators, running out of time to find the "black boxes" with key information on the crash of Air France Flight 447, suspect a rapid chain of computer and equipment malfunctions stripped the crew of automation today's pilots typically rely on to control a big jetliner.

An international team of experts is building a scenario in which it believes a cascade of system failures, seemingly beginning with malfunctioning airspeed sensors, rapidly progressed to what appeared to be sweeping computer outages, according to people familiar with the probe. The Airbus A330, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean during a storm 26 days ago, killing all 228 aboard.

Based on initial physical evidence and information from automatic maintenance messages sent by the aircraft, these people said, the plane bucked through heavy turbulence created by a thunderstorm without the full protection of its flight-control systems -- safeguards that experts say pilots now often take for granted.

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