Paris: French investigators say underwater search teams have located pieces of an Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic in 2009.
The French air accident investigation agency BEA says in a statement Sunday night that a team aboard the vessel Alucia located pieces of the aircraft in the previous 24 hours. The statement says further details will come later.
Searchers are carrying out a fourth costly and complex underwater effort to find remains of the plane - and especially its flight recorders, in hopes of determining the cause of the crash.
Previous extensive and expensive search efforts proved futile in attempts to shed light on the cause of the crash. All 228 people aboard Flight 447, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, were killed when the plane slammed into the ocean during an intense high-altitude thunderstorm.
Finding the cause took on new importance last month when a French judge filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France and the plane's manufacturer, Airbus.
Experts say without the flight data and voice recorders, authorities will not likely determine what was at fault. Air France and Airbus are financing the estimated $12.5 million cost of the new search.
About $28 million has already been spent on the three previous searches for the jet's wreckage.
The search is being targeted in area of about 10,000 square kilometres, several hundred kilometres off Brazil's northeastern coast, and could last until July.
Searchers are using up to three autonomous underwater search vehicles, each of which can stay underwater for up to 20 hours while using sonar to scan a mountainous area known as the Mid-Ocean Ridge. Researchers download the data, and a vehicle with a high resolution camera is sent to check out an area if scientists see evidence of debris.
The French air accident investigation agency BEA says in a statement Sunday night that a team aboard the vessel Alucia located pieces of the aircraft in the previous 24 hours. The statement says further details will come later.
Searchers are carrying out a fourth costly and complex underwater effort to find remains of the plane - and especially its flight recorders, in hopes of determining the cause of the crash.
Previous extensive and expensive search efforts proved futile in attempts to shed light on the cause of the crash. All 228 people aboard Flight 447, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, were killed when the plane slammed into the ocean during an intense high-altitude thunderstorm.
Finding the cause took on new importance last month when a French judge filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France and the plane's manufacturer, Airbus.
Experts say without the flight data and voice recorders, authorities will not likely determine what was at fault. Air France and Airbus are financing the estimated $12.5 million cost of the new search.
About $28 million has already been spent on the three previous searches for the jet's wreckage.
The search is being targeted in area of about 10,000 square kilometres, several hundred kilometres off Brazil's northeastern coast, and could last until July.
Searchers are using up to three autonomous underwater search vehicles, each of which can stay underwater for up to 20 hours while using sonar to scan a mountainous area known as the Mid-Ocean Ridge. Researchers download the data, and a vehicle with a high resolution camera is sent to check out an area if scientists see evidence of debris.
