Air France Flight 447 Wreckage Found

Brazilian aircraft searching for an Air France jet which went missing with 228 people aboard in an Atlantic storm have spotted debris on the ocean.

Some oil, a plane seat and other items were sighted 650km (400 miles) north-east of Brazil's Fernando de Noronha island, the Brazilian air force said.

The find can only be confirmed once the items are retrieved and the first boat is not due to arrive until Wednesday.

The jet was heading from Brazil to Paris when it vanished early on Monday.

While it has yet to be confirmed that the debris is from the Airbus, it was spotted in a region of the ocean consistent with its flight path, the BBC's Adam Mynott reports from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

Accident investigators need to recover material from Flight AF 447 and, crucially, the flight and cockpit voice recorders if they are to establish how it fell into the sea, our correspondent says.

Two Lufthansa jets, which were in the same area as the Air France plane half an hour before it vanished, may provide clues as to what happened, the UN weather agency says.

Plane crews from Brazil, France and other countries had narrowed their search to a zone half-way between Brazil and west Africa, hoping to pick up signals from the Airbus's beacons.

Brazilian air force spokesman Col Jorge Amaral said a Brazilian plane had picked up radar signals indicating "floating metallic and non-metallic materials" at 0100 Brazilian time (0400 GMT) on Tuesday.

At about 0530 Brazilian time, a plane spotted debris in two locations approximately 60km apart.

"In this area, they saw an orange buoy, an airplane seat, small white pieces, an airplane turbine as well as oil and kerosene," Col Amaral told reporters in Rio.

"The search is continuing because it's very little material in relation to the size [of the Airbus A330]."

Col Amaral was also quoted by the Associated Press as saying a life jacket had been spotted amid the debris.

"The locations where the objects were found are towards the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted," he said.

"That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis."

Searchers now planned to focus their efforts on collecting the debris and trying to identify it, the spokesman said.

France is sending a research ship equipped with two mini-submarines to the search area.

The mini-subs on the Pourquoi Pas can work at depths of up to 6,000m and the area where the plane disappeared has maximum depths of 4,700m (19,700 ft), French naval experts told AFP news agency.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon told the French parliament that the cause of the plane's loss had still to be established.

"Our only certainty is that the plane did not send out any distress call but regular automatic alerts for three minutes indicating the failure of all systems," he said.

Experts remain puzzled that there were no radio reports from the Airbus and they say that such a modern aircraft would have had to suffer multiple traumas to plunge into the sea, our correspondent says.

Lufthansa data

The two Lufthansa aircraft recorded data on prevailing temperatures and winds, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said.

Because the exact accident site was unknown, it was "extremely difficult to say how close they were", WMO official Herbert Puempel told Reuters news agency in Geneva.

"But the observations will certainly be used by the investigating group," he added.

Most of the missing people are Brazilian or French but they include a total of 32 nationalities. Five Britons and three Irish citizens are among them.

Crisis centres have been set up at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and Rio de Janeiro's Tom Jobim international airport.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will attend a religious service for the families and friends of the missing passengers and crew at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, on Wednesday.

One of the Brazilians on board was Pedro Luis de Orleans e Braganca, a direct descendent of the last Brazilian emperor, Dom Pedro II, a spokesman for the family said.

Three young Irish doctors were also aboard, returning from two-week holiday in Brazil. Aisling Butler's father John paid tribute to his 26-year-old daughter, from Roscrea, County Tipperary.

"She was a truly wonderful, exciting girl," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

"She never flunked an exam in her life - nailed every one of them - and took it all in her stride."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Air
• France
• Flight
• 447
• Wreckage
• Found
• AF447
• Mexico
• Rio
• Paris

[keepyourcrapbud]

YEAH, why they didn't release the pictures of those material they found.....!!!

Is not thet strange....!

[femr2]

What pictures ? It is too soon to expect photographic or video evidence of the debris. Once the debris is actually recovered and initial investigations have been performed, we can then expect to see the evidence.

I'm sure that if the media had their own spotter planes, we'd have seen some fuzzy pictures from 10,000 ft by now.

It's too soon to be complaining about lack of imagery yet. Wait until at least the debris has been recovered.

[femr2]

News reports still conflict with one-another regarding the ACARS messages.

Having monitored the news content, this appears to be the correct current state-of-play:

16 messages were sent from ACARS over a 3 minute period beginning at 2:14am GMT.

The messages included details of failed electrical systems, culminating in a depressurisation event.

[femr2]

An aviation expert said the large distance between the wreckage zones might be an indication the plane broke up in the sky well before it hit the water.

Brazil has sent four navy ships and a tanker to the remote corner of the ocean, with divers on hand to salvage the pieces.

France dispatched a boat with the Nautile submarine aboard, but it was not expected to reach the zone until early next week.

[femr2]

France is dispatching a mini submarine that can explore to a depth of 6,000 metres (19,680 ft) and will try to locate the Airbus's flight data and voice recorders, which should shed light on a crash that has puzzled aviation experts.

But Paul Louis Arslanian, the head of France's air accident investigation agency, said he was not sure that the black boxes would be recovered and said the probe might prove frustrating.

[femr2]

Officials in Brazil said search teams had spotted four more clusters of debris about 90 km (55 miles) south of the first wreckage discovered on Tuesday in the middle of the Atlantic.

Brazilian and French ships are heading to the area, some 745 miles (1,200 km) northeast of Brazil's coastal city Recife hoping to retrieve as much of the wreckage as possible.

[cycimian]

Good Point kanasaisaband. I will also wager they recover more debri then what was pulled out of the Pentagon on 911

[ShadowMusic2020]

one of the surviors died the next week after the plane crashed,this is like some final destination stuff

[kansasisaband]

More importantly - WHO was on the plane!! Important people to whom? Engineers of what? Doctors in what field? Astronomers studying 2012? Investigators or someONE in the know about a coming False Flag attack? People, we can speculate all we want. Live in fear of the shadows or Live in peace in the Light. How do you choose to sleep at night? Conspiracy theories abound. They will form and we will ponder. Truth? As Pontius Pilate said so eloquently "What is truth?" (Plz don't say your Bible).

[Lisimal]

My question is: Why does this keep on happening?

Airplane technicians should know by now how to prevent these things from happening.

It pisses me off!

Many lives keep on shutting down because of stupid people who don't double check to make sure everything is alright.

[onesliceshort]

I see it´s been reported that a Spanish airline pilot in the same vicinity described ´an intense bright light´ in the area where the plane crashed.

Now I don´t want to make any assumptions but if it had been lightning wouldn´t an experienced pilot just say ´lightning´.

Pilots see it every other flight. Why did this stand out to him?

[jewelshare]

Airbus regrets to confirm that an Airbus A330-200 operated by Air France has been lost about 3.5 hours after departure. The aircraft was operating a scheduled service, Flight AF 447, from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The missing aircraft, registered under the number F-GZCP, was MSN (Manufacturer Serial Number) 660, delivered to Air France from the production line in April 2005. The aircraft had accumulated approximately 18,800 flight hours in some 2,500 flights. It was powered by CF6-80E1 engines.