Plane Debris Found In Hunt For Missing Jet

Tuesday June 02, 2009

Brazilian jets searching for an Air France airliner that vanished over the Atlantic Ocean have spotted plane wreckage.


A spotter plane searching for the airliner that had 228 people on board



Aircraft seats, a life jacket, bits of white material, an orange buoy, a barrel and traces of oil were seen in two floating patches about 35 miles apart, according to an air force statement.

Its pilots spotted the debris around 400 miles beyond the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha.

This was roughly along the route that Flight 447 was taking from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, said Brazil air force spokesman Jorge Amaral.

He said authorities could immediately confirm the wreckage was from the missing plane. The pilots found no signs of life.


We know Aisling is gone, we are sure of that... She was a truly wonderful, exciting girl. I just can’t describe how we feel.

Read about the families whose loved ones were on the plane

The Airbus A330 went missing on a flight to the French capital with 228 people on board.

If no survivors are found, it would be the worst disaster in Air France's 75-year history, more deadly than the crash of one of the company's supersonic Concorde planes in 2000.



Plane was flying to Paris from Brazil

Air France flight 447 left Brazil on Sunday night and lost contact with air traffic controllers in the early hours of Monday morning.

It was carrying 216 passengers of 32 nationalities, including seven children and one baby, Air France said.

Sixty-one were French citizens, 58 Brazilian and 26 German, five British and three young Irish women. Twelve crew members were also on board.

The Air France plane flew into turbulent weather four hours after taking off from Rio and 15 minutes later sent an automatic message reporting electrical faults, the airline said.


"A sudden event caused the autopilot to disengage. The 'cascade' is one system after another failing within seconds of each other. That included the cabin pressure. This suggests the pilots would have had little or no time to attempt to do anything."
Sky's foreign affairs editor Tim Marshall on the Air France flight's final four seconds

The company said a lightning strike could be to blame and that several of the mechanisms on the Airbus 330-200, which has a good safety record, had malfunctioned.

But aviation experts said lightning strikes on planes were common and could not alone explain a disaster.

They also said the plane could have suffered an electrical failure, effectively leaving the pilots "blind" and making the plane vulnerable in an area notorious for bad weather.

The United States agreed to assist in locating the crash site using satellite data.

OMG I hate to see news like this!

I hope they can find some bodies to bury at least!!

Ambersuz wrote:OMG I hate to see news like this!

I hope they can find some bodies to bury at least!!

I know.....
It is absolutely bad enough to lose a loved one to death, but to lose them literally and not lay them to rest must be terrible.
I pray that all bodies are found x

eddie wrote:

Ambersuz wrote:OMG I hate to see news like this!

I hope they can find some bodies to bury at least!!

I know.....
It is absolutely bad enough to lose a loved one to death, but to lose them literally and not lay them to rest must be terrible.
I pray that all bodies are found x

I just dont know about this...do you think they will?

Ambersuz wrote:

eddie wrote:

Ambersuz wrote:OMG I hate to see news like this!

I hope they can find some bodies to bury at least!!

I know.....
It is absolutely bad enough to lose a loved one to death, but to lose them literally and not lay them to rest must be terrible.
I pray that all bodies are found x

I just dont know about this...do you think they will?

They may find some...I don't know...It's horrible and also a bit odd how it just fell out of the sky like that....

Its awful, I did think yesterday that there may be some survivors, if maybe the plane had glided down and floated but it looks as though its in pieces. What a terrible way to go.

Seams that is impossible to have survivors so RIP everyone

i hope that your relatives find a way to cope with this tragedy

every single life inside that plane was cut at the middle without a reason and every one will be miss by someone

Salvage teams have yet to recover any wreckage from missing Air France flight 447 - despite earlier reports.

A Brazilian air force official said debris recovered from the crash site on Thursday was not from the lost Airbus A330.

Brigadier Ramon Cardoso, director of Brazilian air traffic control, said: "Up to now, no material from the plane has been recovered.

The bodies of two men from the Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil have been found by search teams.

Debris from the flight has also been located following days of intensive searching by air and sea.

"We confirm the recovery from the water of debris and bodies from the Air France plane," said Brazilian air force spokesman Colonel Jorge Amaral.

The Airbus jet, with 228 people on board, disappeared early on Monday as it made its way from Rio de Janiero, heading to Paris.

Investigators have been covering an area of several hundred square miles in the Atlantic.

Earlier, it was revealed the airliner sent out 24 automatic error messages in its final moments as its systems broke down one by one.

The head of the French agency probing the tragedy said signals from the jet before it disappeared showed its autopilot was not on.

Paul-Louis Arslanian said it was not clear if the autopilot had been switched off by the pilots or had stopped working because it received conflicting airspeed readings.



Brazilian navy ship joins search

Plane manufacturer Airbus said an investigation found Air France Flight 447 had inconsistent readings from different instruments as it struggled in a massive thunderstorm.

A French nuclear submarine was on its way to the search zone, 600 miles off Brazil's north-east coast, to help look for the flight's black boxes.

It is vital to locate a beacon called a "pinger" that should be attached to the cockpit voice and data recorders, now presumed to be deep in the Atlantic, Mr Arslanian said.

"We have no guarantee that the pinger is attached to the recorders," he added.

Holding up a pinger in the palm of his hand, Mr Arslanian said: "This is what we are looking for in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."

Two more Brazilian navy vessels were set to join three others already in the area.

Some 12 Brazilian and French aircraft were also flying over the zone

Air France Crash Victims To Be Identified

7:48am UK, Friday June 12, 2009
Detectives are to begin identifying bodies from the downed Air France jet after new evidence suggested that the plane disintegrated in mid-air.

Forty-four bodies have been recovered so far, 11 days since the Airbus crashed with 228 people on board.

Two Irish detectives are joining Brazilian authorities to help repatriate the remains of the three Irish and five British people lost in the crash.

Detective Inspector Joseph Kinsella and Detective Sergeant Jarlath Lennon are from Ireland's crack Garda Technical Bureau.

Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said that while no words could comfort the families, the recovery of their loved ones would help bring a small measure of closure.

"The Garda have a wealth of experience in this area and provided invaluable assistance in the aftermath of the tsunami," said Mr Ahern.

Searchers hope to recover more bodies and debris but bad weather has hit the search area.

Aviation officials say the evidence uncovered so far points to at least a partial midair break up of the Airbus A330.

Speculation surrounding the flight has focused on the Airbus's airspeed sensors which may have malfunctioned.

A company report has shown that Air France Airbus jets' probes malfunctioned at least five times last year.

But the French agency probing the crash said that it had yet to find conclusive evidence that faulty airspeed monitors were the cause.

Air France chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told reporters the devices would be replaced on all planes as a precaution.