Brazilian search crews say they have found bodies and debris from Air
France Flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean Monday.
Brazilian Air Force Colonel Jorge Amaral told reporters of the discovery Saturday, but offered few details.
French
investigators said Saturday that Airbus, the makers of the downed
plane, had discovered faulty airspeed readings in its A330 jets and had
recommended the replacement of a sensor in the planes. Air France had
not acted on the recommendation.
The head of the French agency
leading the probe into the crash, Paul-Louis Arslanian, said he cannot
say if the sensor played any role in the crash of the plane.
Airbus
issued the advisory after air safety investigators said equipment that
sent out automatic signals from the downed jet showed inconsistencies
in its speed.
Arslanian says investigators are analyzing 24 error messages sent automatically in the final moments of the flight.
French
submarines are expected to arrive off the Brazilian coast next week to
assist in the search for flight wreckage. The Airbus 330 was flying
from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it went down.
Investigators
are hoping to find the plane's flight data and cockpit
voice recorders ("black boxes"), which are designed to send out signals for 30 days
after an accident.
The recorders would have information from
the final minutes of the flight. The recorders are believed to be
sitting on the ocean floor at depths of at least 3,000 meters.
Brazilian
officials reported earlier this week that military pilots had spotted
wreckage from the airliner, but pieces pulled from the water turned out
to be unrelated to the plane. Flight 447 had 228 people on board.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.
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