With 17 bodies pulled so far from the Atlantic, Brazilian and French military ships have no doubt they located the wreckage of an Air France flight a week after it disappeared en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
But what caused the Airbus A330 to crash with 228 people on board will remain a mystery — unless searchers can locate the plane’s black box data and voice recorders, likely buried deep in the middle of the ocean.
Two high-tech devices from the US Navy that can detect emergency beacons to a depth of 20,000 feet (6,100m) were being flown to Brazil yesterday with a US Navy team, according to the Pentagon. They will be delivered to two French tugs that will listen for transmissions from the boxes.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Bodies recovered on Sunday raised the total to 17, after pilots participating in a grid search found 15 corpses in an area about 70km from where the jet sent out messages signaling electrical failures and loss of cabin pressure.
The first two bodies were found on Saturday. Authorities also announced that searchers spotted two airplane seats, debris with Air France’s logo, and recovered dozens of structural components from the plane. They had already recovered jet wing fragments, and said hundreds of personal items believed to be passengers’ belongings were plucked from the water.
France is leading the investigation into the cause of the crash, while Brazilian officials are focusing solely on the recovery of victims and plane wreckage.
There is “no more doubt” that the wreckage is from Air France Flight 447, Brazilian Air Force Colonel Henry Munhoz said on Sunday.
Brazil’s military was not releasing detailed information about other bodies or debris spotted from the air after it was criticized last week for mistakenly identifying sea trash as a cargo pallet from the plane.
Flight 447 disappeared and likely broke up in midair in turbulent weather last Sunday night.
The search is focusing on a zone of several hundred square kilometers roughly 640km northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil’s northern coast.
Brazilian authorities have refused since the search began to release the precise coordinates of where they are looking, except to say the area lies southeast of the last jet transmission and could have indicated the pilot was trying to turn around in mid-flight and head to the islands.
The investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments on the Airbus A330 may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and leading computers to set the plane’s speed too fast or slow — a potentially deadly mistake.
Nine bodies have been found by Brazilian authorities: four men, four women and one that was impossible to identify by gender, Munhoz said. He said he did not have information about the genders of the eight bodies recovered by French military helicopters that were transferred to a French ship.
Munhoz and Brazilian Navy Captain Giucemar Tabosa Cardoso declined to comment on the condition of the bodies, saying that information would be too emotionally painful for relatives.
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