Experts have identified the body of Marc Dubois, the captain of Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic on June 1 in a disaster that has raised doubts about the safety of the world’s modern airliners.

The remains of Mr Dubois, 58, and those of one of the stewards, were among a dozen bodies identified from 50 that were found in the Atlantic off Brazil and taken to the coastal city of Recife.

All 228 people on board the A330 Airbus died when it broke up while crossing a storm zone on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

In the final four minutes automatic alert messages from the aircraft showed several failures, which began with faulty speed readings.

Air France and Airbus confirmed a series of previous incidents involving faulty speed data and experts have focused on the possibility that the aircraft went out of control after a failure of its computerised flight system.

The pilots may have been unable to fly the aircraft manually in severe weather and without reliable instruments.

The discovery of Mr Dubois’ body was seen as a possible confirmation that, in keeping with standard practice, he was resting during the cruise phase of the flight.

The first and second officers would have been at the controls. It is thought that seat-belted pilots were unlikely to have been thrown clear of the tightly enclosed flight deck.

The French accident bureau promised a preliminary report on July 2. The investigators cautioned last week that it was too early to suggest a cause for Air France’s worst disaster.

Hopes of finding the two flight recorders were fading because the locator beacons are due to lose power by June 30. In the absence of distress calls and black boxes the investigators must rely on the data messages, known as Acars, which the aircraft sent to Charles de Gaulle airport.

Air France confirmed to The Times that a team of mechanics had been dispatched to meet Flight 447 on its landing to replace its pitot tubes — the external speed sensors — after the Acars messages came in.

The airline engineers in Paris had recognised the same pattern of failures which had been recorded in previous incidents and did not know at the time that the aircraft had crashed.

Leaks from Air France and pilots’ unions indicate that the airline was aware earlier than it has publicly admitted that there was a problem with the speed instruments on the fleet of long-range A330 and A340 aircraft. Air France was already in the process of replacing the pitot tubes.

Air France 447 was the 36th flight in which there had been known faulty speed readings on the A330 and A340 series operated by various airlines, said Eurocockpit, a French-language website run by pilots, including Air France crew.

The previous incidents followed the same pattern as those reported by AF447, except that the pilots were able to recover control and return to normal flight.

Because of the storm conditions maintaining control in AF447 would have been a monumental task, the website said. We have consulted the [Air France] pilots who had these pitot problems. All told us that it took a big immediate dose of lucidity to avoid distraction by the stall warnings which came with the incident and face up to the deluge of alarms.”

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