Pilots question airspeed sensors' troubled history

http://www.newsday.com/business/pilots-question-airspeed-sensors-troubled-history-1.1449357

The tubes, about the size of an adult hand and fitted to the
underbelly of a plane, are vulnerable to blockage from water and
icing. Experts have suggested that Flight 447's sensors, made by
French company Thales SA, may have iced over and sent false speed
information to the computers as the plane ran into a thunderstorm at
about 35,000 feet (10,600 meters).