World News

The number of bodies recovered from the Air France flight that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean last week rose to 24, Brazilian authorities said.

Another eight bodies from the flight that had been carrying 228 people were found Monday, the Brazilian Navy and Air Force said in the northeastern city of Recife.

The teams have also discovered hundreds of large and small pieces of the Airbus A330-200 that disappeared June 1 while on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris as well as personal belongings of its passengers, they said.

The remains were found about 440 km northeast of Brazil's tiny, unpopulated Atlantic island group, the St Peter and St Paul Rocks. The sea is about 3,500 metres deep at that location.

Six ships and 14 planes have been deployed round the clock in the search area about 1,200 km northeast of the Brazilian coastline.

The Brazilian recovery frigate Constituicao was returning to land and was on its way to the island of Fernando de Noronha, where it was expected to arrive Tuesday at the earliest with the 16 bodies discovered over the weekend.

The bodies were to receive an initial examination on Fernando de Noronha, about 350 km from the mainland. They then would be flown to Recife, where the process of identification would begin.

Relatives were asked to provide hair and blood samples to aid in the identifications through DNA comparisons.

Boats were fishing debris and belongings from the sea, which included bags, laptop computers, video and digital cameras, passenger seats and plastic fittings from the cabin. Television footage showed wreckage marked with 'Air France'.

Where the wreck of Flight 447 exactly lies was unknown as was what caused it to go down.

A French submarine was dispatched to help search for the plane's black boxes, which record a plane's instrument readings and cockpit conversations, to help in the investigation.

The wreckage was believed to lie at a depth of more than 3,000 metres, and experts said they believed the recovery of the black boxes was unlikely.

Meanwhile, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon Sunday named an ambassador for the victim's families, his office said.

Pierre-Jean Vandoorne is to assist the relatives of the 216 passengers from 32 countries and 12 crew members who died in the accident in their dealings with governments, bureaucracies and Air France.

Vandoorne would also try to facilitate cooperation between French authorities and officials in the countries affected by the crash.

Recovery teams have pulled an additional 17 bodies out of the Atlantic Ocean off Brazil, bringing the total number of bodies retrieved after last week's Air France plane crash to 41.

The airliner, travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people on board, crashed into the ocean in the early hours of June 1 about 1,300 km northeast of Brazil's coast, in a region beset by rough seas and tumultuous storms, which have hindered recovery efforts.

As the Brazilian military continued to look for more bodies, the remains of 16 people that were recovered from the ocean over the weekend were brought to the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, located near the crash site. The bodies will later be transferred to mainland Brazil, where they were to be examined by forensic experts from Brazil and France.

Brazilian civil aviation spokesman, Brigadier Ramon Cardoso, said the 25 bodies recovered Monday and Tuesday were also being taken to the island.

Beginning Wednesday the search area would be expanded to the north towards the Saint Paul and Saint Peter Rocks archipelago, in an area under the control of Senegal, Cardoso said.

The African country had authorised the activities of search aircraft and ships in that region, where the bodies of other occupants of the crashed Airbus A330-200 were believed to have been carried by marine currents.

The Brazilian military was also retrieving debris from the airliner, which would eventually be handed over to French authorities investigating the cause of the crash.

On Tuesday, they showed a photograph of one such portion of the plane - apparently a wing - which is aboard the recovery ship Constituicao, although they warned that it may be some time before such debris is transferred to Fernando de Noronha.

'Rescuing bodies remains our priority,' Tabosa said.

The cause of the worst commercial aviation disaster since 2001 remains a mystery. Eight days after the Airbus A330-200 plunged into the sea, the attention of investigators remained focused on the plane's airspeed sensors, which apparently malfunctioned in the final minutes of the doomed flight.

Because of the crash, Air France has presented its pilots with a schedule for replacing the sensors, called Pitot tubes, on its fleet of Airbus A330 and A340 planes, the online edition of the weekly Le Point reported Tuesday.

According to a spokesman for a union representing Air France personnel, the replacement of two of three Pitot tubes on each plane is to take place in a few days.

Pitot tubes provide information about ambient air pressure and therefore aid in measuring the airspeed of an aircraft.

Although no link between a malfunction of the Pitot tubes and the crash has yet been made, investigators are concentrating on their condition minutes before the crash, when the doomed Airbus A330-200 sent out a series of inconsistent airspeed readings.

But the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said Tuesday that the breakdown of the Pitot tubes was probably not the reason for the accident.

The EASA nevertheless issued a safety advisory to airline pilots that they must rely on other flight data if the devices break down. The advisory from the Cologne, Germany-based agency went to all operators of intercontinental flights.

Another Air France union has told the carrier's pilots not to take command of any Airbus A330 or A340 plane in which at least two of the sensors have not been replaced.

Since 1995, there have been a number of cases in which the Pitot tubes indicated an incorrect airspeed, which prompted the French Civil Aviation Authority (DGAC) in 2001 to order repairs to the devices, Le Figaro reported.

The measure was justified by the possibility of 'the loss of or fluctuations in airspeed indications in extreme weather conditions', the DGAC said at the time.

It is believed the doomed Air France flight encountered a violent storm just before it fell out of the sky.

The international police agency Interpol said Tuesday that it would aid in coordinating international efforts to identify the 228 victims, who came from 32 countries.

This will involve the collection of data from the recovered remains, such as tattoos, fingerprints, surgical implants and dental X-rays, Interpol said.

Recovery efforts involved 825 members of the Brazilian military, 14 aircraft - two of them French - and six ships, including one French ship. More Brazilian, French and US ships are expected in the coming days.

The French nuclear-powered submarine Emeraude and the amphibian ship Mistral were to join the efforts Wednesday with a focus on finding the flight recorders in an area where the ocean floor is as much as 3,500 metres deep.

An Indian has won Nordic carrier Finnair's award for best envisaging how flying would look and feel like in the future, besting 1,000 competitors from around the world.

The prize, Finnair tickets between Europe and Asia, was won by Dattatray Kuvalekar from India, the airline said in a statement here Wednesday.

To mark the 85th anniversary of its founding, Finnair joined aircraft manufacturer Airbus and other industry experts in envisioning what flying would be like in 2093.

'Around 1,000 visionaries submitted their views on the flying of the future,' said the statement.

In the competition launched in March, people had the opportunity to vote on which aircraft of the future was the most captivating and to present their own visions of what flying of the future might be like.

'The wing-shaped Finnair A600-850, intended for short-haul routes, was voted the most enchanting design,' the statement said.

In Kuvalekar's vision, flying in the future will be fast and, of course, neutral in terms of its environmental impact.

New technology will guarantee a smooth and efficient travel experienc, he said.

After a 24-hour search, security personnel today found the wreckage of an IAF An-32 transport aircraft that crashed near a village in West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh and recovered the charred bodies of all the 13 defence personnel killed in the mishap. The aircraft had crashed over the Rinchi Hill above Heyo village, about 30 km from Mechuka advance landing ground in the district located about 60 km from the Indo-Chinese Line of Actual Control, State police and IAF officials said here.

Among the seven IAF men and six Army personnel on board the ill-fated aircraft were two wing commanders, two squadron leaders and a flight lieutenant. "The IAF search team reached the air crash site and has recovered the bodies of the personnel, who were on board the aircraft," an IAF spokesperson said in New Delhi.

The aircraft, belonging to a squadron in Jorhat in Assam, was on a routine sortie for air maintenance of troops and had landed in Mechuka yesterday morning. It was on its flight to Mohanbari airbase in Assam and had taken off from Mechuka around 1400 hours and soon went missing from the radar, the spokesperson said.

The police quoted some local residents as saying they heard a loud noise and saw thick smoke billowing from the distant hills. Body parts of crew-members were found strewn around the wreckage of the mangled aircraft, Additional Superintendent of Police H Lanin told PTI over telephone from Aalo, headquarters of the West Siang district.