Brazil's air force has found metal debris 400 miles off the Brazilian coast during a search for wreckage of the Air France jetliner that vanished during a storm yesterday morning.
Air force pilots saw plane seats, an orange buoy, metallic objects and fuel stains in the water about 1,100 km (685 miles) northeast of the Brazilian coast, near where controllers last made contact with the missing Airbus A330 early on Monday.
Brazil's navy, which expects several of its ships to reach the area tomorrow, Wednesday, said three commercial ships had arrived at the spot but had not yet found any traces of the plane.
The chances of finding survivors among the 12 crew and 216 passengers of 32 different nationalities appeared close to zero, meaning it would be the worst disaster in Air France's 75-year history.
"The plan now is to focus our efforts to collect the debris and try to identify if they belong to the Air France plane," Colonel Jorge Amaral of Brazil's air force told reporters in the capital, Brasilia.
"We can't really say this is part of the airplane," he said, adding that a piece of debris with a serial number would be needed to confirm the plane's identity.
Authorities remained baffled by how a storm could have caused the modern plane built to withstand severe weather and operated by three experienced pilots to crash without even sending a distress signal.
Brazil's air force last had contact with Flight AF447 at 0133 GMT on Monday when it was 565 km (350 miles) from Brazil's coast. The last automated signals, which reported an electrical failure, were received about 40 minutes later.
One theory is that a lightning strike or brutal turbulence set off further failures that led to a crash, but experts said families face a long wait for answers as the search for the plane's flight recorders is likely to be one of the most difficult ever.
Brazil's navy said the water depth in the area where debris was seen was between 2,000 to 3,000 meters (6,600-9,800 feet).
The "black box" recorders are the best hope of finding out why the jet crashed and are designed to send homing signals when they hit water. It could be among the hardest recovery tasks since the exploration of the Titanic, one expert said.
"If you think how long it took to find the Titanic and that the debris would be smaller, you are looking for a needle in haystack," said Derek Clarke, joint managing director of Aberdeen-based Divex, which designs and builds military and commercial diving equipment.
Senior French minister Jean-Louis Borloo said it was "a race against the clock" to find the black boxes because they only emit signals for up to 30 days.
Five air force planes continued the search from the islands of Fernando de Noronha, which sit about 370 km (230 miles) off the coast of South America. A US Navy plane and 21 crew based in El Salvador landed in Brazil today to join the search.
Distraught relatives of the flight's passengers, more than half of whom were French or Brazilian, were being assisted by teams of psychologists in Paris and Rio.
"My son died on his birthday," said a tearful Diana Raquel, mother of London-based Brazilian dentist Jose Rommel Amorim, who turned 35 on Sunday and had been visiting his family.
Among the 216 passengers were executives from major companies that have invested in Brazil in recent years and European tourists returning from its famous beaches, as well as seven children and one baby. Three Irish women, all recently qualified doctors in their 20s, were also on board.
French electrical equipment firm CGED said 10 of its staff were on the missing plane with their partners after winning a trip to Brazil in the company's annual sales contest. Aer Lingus said it had two members of staff on board the flight.
Aviation experts were at a loss to explain how the plane, which had an excellent safety record, could have crashed.
Lightning strikes on planes are common and could not alone explain the downing of a modern aircraft, they said.
There were no distress messages, human or automatic. No mayday message was picked up, nor were any signals received from emergency beacons that should have transmitted automatically.
Two Lufthansa jets believed to have been in the same area half an hour before the missing Air France flight are expected to provide clues for the investigation, the World Meteorological Organization said.
French defence minister Herve Morin said the government could not rule out a terrorist attack but had no evidence to suggest that foul play had caused the crash.
Reuters