The Wright Brothers invention that permitted controlled flight was the rudder.
Without it, even gliders would go into a descending spiral and then into a spin.
An airplane will always go into a spin if it loses the vertical tail. The vertical tail was miles away from the rest of the wreckage.
Boeing tails do not break off because they have metal attachments. Carbon fiber attachments shatter when they are over stressed. Metal attachments may deform, but they do not shatter.
The "official" investigation is political.
The French and Brazilian navies found debris belonging to the aircraft from 6 June onwards. All the debris known to the BEA was referenced in a database. By 26 June, this database included 640 items.
Whenever the information is available, the position, the date and the time of their recovery are indicated. The chart below shows the position of all of the bodies and debris thus georeferenced.
The bodies are represented by red circles and the debris by white circles. The tail fin (vertical stabiliser), found on 7 June is represented by a yellow diamond. The timeline of the recovery of the bodies and debris from the aircraft found between 6 June and 18 June, 2009 and known to the BEA on 26 June, 2009, can be found in appendix 4. http://luckybogey.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/bea-interim-report-for-air-france-flight-447-rio-paris/