Debris From Air France Flight 447 Found In Atlantic (VIDEO)

Posted on June 2, 2009

Brazilian military pilots searching for missing Air France flight 447 have found an airplane seat, an orange buoy, and other debris and signs of fuel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday. Read more on the possible debris of Flight 447 being found below.

The Brazilian Military found debris in the atlantic while searching for the missing air France plane, carrying 228 people onboard.

Brazil’s Navy also have three commercial ships in the area aiding in the search for the plane.

Pilots spotted two areas of floating debris beyond the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, near Flight 447’s path from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. But sadly there were no signs of life.

“The locations where the objects were found are toward the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted,” they reported. “That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis.”

Two commercial ships that joined the search late Tuesday morning reached the area where the debris was found. “Once they come across the objects, they will be analyzed to determine if they are parts of the plane or just junk,” they said.

The French minister, Jean-Louis Borloo, has dispatched to the debris site a research ship that can deploy unmanned submarines to explore depths of up to 19,600 feet. The U.S. is also considering contributing unmanned underwater vehicles in the search.

The discovery of the airplane debris came more than 24 hours after the jet went missing, with all feared dead.

If there are no survivors are found, it would be the world’s worst civil aviation disaster since the November 2001 crash of an American Airlines jetliner in the New York City borough of Queens that killed 265 people, reports the Associated Press.

Investigators are trying to determine what might have caused Flight 447 to crash. They are speculating it could be violently shifting winds and hail from towering thunderheads, lightning or some combination of other factors.

The crew did not give any verbal distress before the crash, but the plane’s system sent an automatic message just before it disappeared, reporting lost pressure and electrical failure.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said that if the debris is confirmed to be part of Flight 447, “This will allow us to better determine the search zone.”

“We are in a race against the clock in extremely difficult weather conditions and in a zone where depths reach up to 7,000 meters,” he told lawmakers in the lower house of French parliament Tuesday. Black box recorders can emit signals for up to 30 days.

The chance of finding survivors now “is very very small, even nonexistent,” said the French minister overseeing transportation, Jean-Louis Borloo.

French police are studying passenger lists and preparing to take DNA from passengers’ relatives to help identify any bodies.

France’s Defense Minister Herve Morin said “we have no signs so far” of terrorism, but all hypotheses must be studied.

On board the flight were 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, nine Chinese and nine Italians. A lesser number of citizens from 27 other countries also were on the passenger list.

The couple from the United States were a 60-year-old geologist Michael Harris and his 54-year-old wife, Anne, residents of Rio de Janeiro who were headed to Europe for work and vacation. They lived previously in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Among the passengers were three young Irish doctors, returning from two-week vacation 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. She never flunked an exam in her life — nailed every one of them — and took it all in her stride,” he said.

We will keep you posted as more information on Flight 447 become available.

Click Thumbnails for Larger Pictures