Missing plane: Wreckage spotted floating in ocean

03.06.2009

DEBRIS from a plane believed to be the missing, Air France Flight 447, has been found floating in the ocean some 400 miles north-east of Brazil, the Brazilian Air Force has revealed.

The wreckage, including seats from the plane and a life jacket, may confirm the worst fears of relatives of the 228 people on board the doomed flight.

Also spotted were small white pieces of material that may be metallic, and signs of oil and kerosene, which is used as jet fuel.

Members of the Brazilian Pelican military squad prepare to take off in the search of the missing jet.

Air Force spokesman, Jorge Amaral, said the seats were spotted by search planes early on Tuesday morning but that authorities have not yet confirmed they were from the plane.

“The plan now is to focus our efforts to collect the debris and try to identify if they belong or ‘The locations where the objects were found are towards the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted,” Amaral said.

“That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis.

“The search is continuing because it’s very little material in relation to the size of the Airbus A330,” he added.

Officials need ‘a piece that might have a serial number, some sort of identification’ to be sure it came from the missing jet.

Brazilian military ships are not expected to arrive at the area until today. If no survivors are found, it will be the worst crash since 2001 and the biggest loss of life in Air France’s 75-year history.

The debris was found about 375 miles (650 kilometres) north-east of the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha - near where the last contact was made with the jet on Sunday night.