Brazilian Air Force Brigadier Ramon
Borges Cardoso (L) arrives to give a news conference in Recife,
northeastern Brazil June 4, 2009. Brazilian search crews fished the first
debris from a crashed Air France flight out of choppy Atlantic waters on
Thursday amid concern the plane may have flown through a storm at the
wrong speed. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo
Gallery>>>
RIO DE JANEIRO/PARIS, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Searchers on
Thursday located more debris near where Air France Flight 447 went down in the
Atlantic Ocean but officials said the matter didn't come from the airplane.
Four planes, including an AWACS aircraft from the
Dakar French air base, helped locate the downed plane, said Christophe Prazuck,
an official with the French Chief of Staff.
The searchers spotted some metal objects but they did
not belong to the plane, he said.
The Airbus A330 broke apart likely in midair as it
crashed into the Atlantic off Brazil's northeastern coast late Sunday during a
flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The accident killed all 228 people aboard
the plane and is the world's worst aviation disaster since 2001.
Brazilian Air Force Brigadier Ramon
Borges Cardoso talks to journalists during a news conference in Recife,
northeastern Brazil June 4, 2009. Brazilian search crews fished the first
debris from a crashed Air France flight out of choppy Atlantic waters on
Thursday amid concern the plane may have flown through a storm at the
wrong speed.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>
The Brazilian Navy, meanwhile, said it has salvaged
the first batch of items from the crash area. However, Air Force
Lieutenant-Brigadier Ramom Borges Cardoso said the debris did not come from the
doomed plane.
Cardoso said oil tracks detected by the Navy also
were not from the plane.
Eleven aircraft, including a P-3 Orion from the U.S.
Air Force, are involved in the search for remnants of the plane. In addition to
a Falcon 50 jet, the French government also sent submarines in an attempt to
find the plane's black box.
France's air safety investigation agency said
Wednesday it was not confident the black box, which contains voice and data
recorders and is designed to last 30 days underwater, could be located.
The agency is expected to have an initial report on
the disaster ready by the end of June, said its director Paul-Louis Arslanian.
Arslanian, calling the crash the most serious in
French aviation history, said France will take charge of the investigation
according to related international laws.
There are too many uncertainties regarding
information obtained so far to determine a cause of the crash, Arslanian said.
He said the complexity of the ocean area where the plane crashed also added to
the difficulty of the investigation.
Relatives of the victims of the missing
Air France's airliner comfort each other after a pray at the Candelaria
Church in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 4, 2009. A pray was held here on
Thursday for the victims of the missing airliner. (Xinhua/Song
Weiwei) Photo
Gallery>>>
PARIS, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Air France has told families of
passengers on Flight 447 that there is no hope that anyone aboard the plane
could have survived, the media reported on Thursday.
When meeting with families in a hotel near Charles de
Gaulle airport on Wednesday, Air France's CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said the
plane broke up either in the air or when it crashed into the ocean and there
were no survivors, according to Guillaume Denoix de Saint-Marc, a spokesman for
a victim's help group. Full story
Staff members of Air France and
relatives of the victims mourn for the 216 passengers and 12 crew members
aboard the missing Airbus A330 during a memorial ceremony in front of
Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, capital of France, on June 3, 2009. A
church service was held in Notre-Dame cathedral on Wednesday. The Air
France Airbus A330-200, Flight 447, bound for Charles de Gaulle airport in
Paris, lost contact with the control center shortly after its takeoff from
Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time (2200 GMT). (Xinhua/Zhang
Yuwei) Photo
Gallery>>>
PARIS, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Solemn music wafted over the
square circling Notre Dame Cathedral on Wednesday as relatives, friends and
others collected inside to mourn the 228 victims of the Air France flight that
plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.
"Gathered by grief and shock, we are in a heavy mood
in remembrance of the 228 victims," Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, the archbishop
of Paris, told the audience, including President Nicolas Sarkozy, Prime Minister
Francois Fillon, former President Jacques Chirac and Air France
employees. Full story
Brazil's Defense Minister Nelson Jobim
attends a press conference held in Brasilia, Brazil, June 3, 2009. Brazil
Tuesday confirmed the debris found earlier on the open Atlantic Ocean
belonged to Air France Flight 447, solidifying the crash of the jet that
went missing early Monday. The three-mile (five kilometers) path of
wreckage found in the Atlantic Ocean belonged to the Air France jet
carrying 228 people that was believed to have crashed into the sea,
Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said on Tuesday.(Xinhua
Photo) Photo
Gallery>>>
RIO DE JANEIRO/PARIS, June 3 (Xinhua) -- More debris from
the Air France Flight 447 has been found on Wednesday, but the whereabouts of
its black box remained a mystery.
A seven-meter-long object and 10 other objects,
some of them metallic, were spotted by the search planes at 3:40 a.m., said the
Brazilian Air Force. A 20-kilometer-long oil track was spotted as well. Full story
Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim
holds a diagram of the crash area during a news conference in Rio de
Janeiro June 2, 2009. Jobim said that wreckage spotted in the Atlantic
Ocean is "without a doubt" from the Air France jet that disappeared en
route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro with 228 people on board.
(Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo
Gallery>>>
RIO DE JANEIRO, June 2 (Xinhua) -- The three-mile (five
kilometers) path of wreckage found in the Atlantic Ocean belongs to an Air
France jet carrying 228 people that was believed to have crashed into the sea,
Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim confirmed on Tuesday. Full story
PARIS, June 3 (Xinhua) --
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner will visit Brazil to attend ceremonies
in honor of victims of the Air France Airbus A330 flight AF447, announced the
French officials on Wednesday.
At the request of the Brazilian president, Kouchner
will "travel to Brazil to participate in ceremonies commemorating the victims to
be held in Brazil in the coming days," the government spokesman Luc Chatel said
in his weekly report of the Council of Ministers. Full story
PARIS, June 3 (Xinhua) -- The French accident
investigation agency said on Wednesday it was not hopeful that the black box of
the missing Air France airliner would be found.
Speaking at the first news conference since the
disappearance of the Air France flight AF447 from Rio to Paris on Monday,
Paul-Louis Arslanian, the director of France's air safety investigation agency,
said he was "not optimistic" that the box would be found in the "deep sea and
mountainous area." Full story
PARIS, June 1 (Xinhua) -- Chances of finding any survivors
are "very slim" as an Air France airliner with 228 people on board vanished over
the Atlantic Ocean, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday. Full story
PARIS, June 1 (Xinhua) -- Air France announced Monday that
victims aboard Flight 447 missing over the Atlantic on route from Rio de Janeiro
to Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport came from 32 countries. Full story
