Debris from Air France Crash Set to Arrive Back in France

View of debris from Air France's Airbus A330-200 presented by the Brazilian Air Force in the city of Recife, Brazil, 12 June 2009. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Hundreds of pieces of debris from the mid-Atlantic crash of Air France flight 447 are being shipped from Brazil to a defence ministry laboratory in France, planemaker Airbus said Thursday.

The Air France flight from Rio to Paris came down during the night of May 31 to June 1 during a storm, with the loss of all 228 people on board, Darik Radio reported.

The 640 fragments recovered from the Airbus A330, including its entire tailfin, are to arrive in the southwestern port of Pauillac Tuesday, before being transferred to the CEAT aeronautical laboratory in Toulouse, Airbus said.

The French bureau leading the crash investigation, the BEA, confirmed that analysis of the debris would continue at the lab under its supervision and that of French air transport gendarmes.

The plane fragments are being ferried from Brazil on a cargo ship, the Ville de Bordeaux, normally used by Airbus to carry parts of the A380 superjumbo for assembly.

The BEA said in a report last week, based on an initial study of the debris, that the plane was intact when it hit the ocean, but that the cause of the crash was still unknown.

Brazil's military called off the search for bodies and debris from the Air France jet late last month.

The search for the plane's black boxes is to continue until Saturday using acoustic tracking equipment. It will continue after that with underwater robots.

 

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