A SEARCH team has found bodies and wreckage from an Air France aircraft that crashed in the Atlantic in 2009, raising hopes that investigators could finally establish the cause of the disaster.
Air France flight 447 crashed into the ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, killing all 228 passengers and crew – including three Irish women – but a long search has so far failed to find flight recorders that could give clues to the cause of the accident.
The latest search, the fourth since the crash, is being carried out using a salvage vessel equipped with unmanned submarines.
France’s BEA accident investigation authority said on Sunday it had found a large part of the wreckage, including the engine and parts of the fuselage. Environment minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said yesterday there were bodies inside.
“We have more than just traces, we have bodies . . . identification is possible,” she told France Inter radio, adding that the process of bringing the wreckage to the surface could begin within a month.
Transport minister Thierry Mariani said representatives of victims’ families would be informed of the findings at a meeting at the end of the week and no further details would be made public before then.
“It’s true that bodies have been seen, but given the sensitive nature of the subject, we prefer to keep certain details for the families,” he told France Info radio.
The discovery of chunks of Air France wreckage in a vast search radius of some 10,000 sq km has raised hopes that the aircraft’s flight recorders, or black boxes, might now be found.
“This is very good news because it brings with it the hope that at last we will get some information on what caused this accident, which to this day remains unexplained,” Air France-KLM chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said.
The aircraft vanished after hitting stormy weather over the Atlantic a few hours into the flight. Speculation has focused on the possible icing up of the aircraft’s speed sensors, which seemed to give inconsistent readings before communication was lost.
Among the victims of the disaster were Dr Jane Deasy (27), Rathgar, Dublin, Dr Aisling Butler (26), Roscrea, Co Tipperary, and Dr Eithne Walls (28), Ballygowan, Co Down. The three were returning from a holiday in Brazil.
In an interim report published in December 2009, air crash investigators said faulty speed sensors were one factor in a sequence of events that led to the crash.
It said study of the debris at the site suggested that passengers had little warning of the crash, as life jackets were still in their wrappers and the aircraft had not lost cabin pressure. The inquiry believes the aircraft hit the sea belly-down and in one piece.