[jyl]

The biggest floating pieces of AF447 were much smaller than that. I think they were a piece of the tail and part of a gallery. Like 10 feet in size. I'm not positive, but anyway it does seem unlikely that three pieces of plane, so large, but light enough to float for days, would survive a crash.

Why the delay in Chinese release of the information? This was probably a Chinese military satellite, likely there were opposing views about revealing anything about their surveillance capabilities.

(It wouldn't shock me if US satellites and other intelligence gather information that they will not disclose for purposes that have no relevance to national security.)