PARIS -- Undersea robots have located bodies, motors and a large part of an Air France jet that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009, but haven't yet found its black box flight recorders, French officials said Monday.
Victims' families cautiously welcomed the surprise announcement that search teams have located pieces of the plane, after nearly two years of fruitless efforts to determine what caused it to crash. Investigators have said without the recorders, the cause may never be determined.
All 228 people aboard the plane were killed when the flight, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, slammed into the ocean June 1, 2009, after running into an intense high-altitude thunderstorm.
The French air accident investigation agency BEA said Sunday night that a team aboard the expedition ship Alucia using underwater robots has located pieces of an aircraft ... in the past 24 hours.
French Transport Minister Thierry Mariani said Monday that bodies have been located. Speaking on France-Info radio, he wouldn't elaborate, saying further information would be released to the families alone.
Fifty bodies were found during the first phase of the search, along with more than 600 pieces of the plane scattered on the sea. No bodies or debris have been found since.
This fourth search campaign allowed us to locate motors, landing gear, wing parts, which is a very positive sign because at last we will be able, perhaps, to find out the truth, Mariani said.
BEA spokeswoman Martine Del Bono said Monday that the black boxes have not been located. I hope to be able to announce that (discovery) in the coming weeks, she told The Associated Press.
The debris was found at remarkable depths, of between 3,800 and 4,000 meters, Del Bono said. It is far from clear whether the flight recorders, even if they are found, would still be intact after nearly two years under such conditions.
In the past we found the tail, scattered pieces, but this time we have found a large part of the plane, surrounded by debris, said French government minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who oversees environmental and transport issues, on France-Inter radio.
Everything didn't explode. There was a part of the cabin, and in this cabin, there are bodies.
She said there is a possibility that the bodies could be identified.
Rest of article: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/04/undersea-robots-locate-bodies-parts-of-air-france-plane-crash/
Victims' families cautiously welcomed the surprise announcement that search teams have located pieces of the plane, after nearly two years of fruitless efforts to determine what caused it to crash. Investigators have said without the recorders, the cause may never be determined.
All 228 people aboard the plane were killed when the flight, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, slammed into the ocean June 1, 2009, after running into an intense high-altitude thunderstorm.
The French air accident investigation agency BEA said Sunday night that a team aboard the expedition ship Alucia using underwater robots has located pieces of an aircraft ... in the past 24 hours.
French Transport Minister Thierry Mariani said Monday that bodies have been located. Speaking on France-Info radio, he wouldn't elaborate, saying further information would be released to the families alone.
Fifty bodies were found during the first phase of the search, along with more than 600 pieces of the plane scattered on the sea. No bodies or debris have been found since.
This fourth search campaign allowed us to locate motors, landing gear, wing parts, which is a very positive sign because at last we will be able, perhaps, to find out the truth, Mariani said.
BEA spokeswoman Martine Del Bono said Monday that the black boxes have not been located. I hope to be able to announce that (discovery) in the coming weeks, she told The Associated Press.
The debris was found at remarkable depths, of between 3,800 and 4,000 meters, Del Bono said. It is far from clear whether the flight recorders, even if they are found, would still be intact after nearly two years under such conditions.
In the past we found the tail, scattered pieces, but this time we have found a large part of the plane, surrounded by debris, said French government minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who oversees environmental and transport issues, on France-Inter radio.
Everything didn't explode. There was a part of the cabin, and in this cabin, there are bodies.
She said there is a possibility that the bodies could be identified.
Rest of article: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/04/undersea-robots-locate-bodies-parts-of-air-france-plane-crash/
