Paris: Brazilian and French navy vessels rushed on Wednesday to reach wreckage of an Air France flight that plunged into the Atlantic, but investigators warned the truth behind France's worst air disaster may never fully emerge.
The doomed Airbus was carrying 228 passengers and crew en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it crashed into the ocean early on Monday after the pilot reported heavy turbulence.
Debris was sighted by a spotter plane more than 24 hours later about 745 miles (1,200 km) northeast of the Brazilian coastal city of Recife, and the Brazil navy has dispatched four navy ships with recovery equipment to the area.
France prepared to send a boat with an unmanned submarine aboard that can explore as deeply as 6,000 metres (19,680 ft) and will try to locate the Airbus's black boxes, which could shed light on the mysterious disaster.
Paul Louis Arslanian, the head of France's air accident investigation agency, said he was not totally optimistic that the black boxes would ever be recovered and said the probe might not reveal all the reasons behind the crash.
"I cannot rule out the possibility that we might end up with a finding that is relatively unsatisfactory in terms of certainty," Arslanian told reporters.
"But we will do our best to limit the uncertainty," he said. A first report will be ready by the end of the month, with the investigation led by Alain Bouillard, who took charge of the probe into the crash of an Air France Concorde in 2000.
Fine at Take Off
Arslanian revealed few new elements, confirming only that the plane's crew had sent a radio message reporting turbulence as it headed towards the equator and that the plane had later sent a series of automated messages over a three minute period reporting malfunctions.
He did not specify what these were. "For now, there is no indication to suggest that the plane had a problem before its take off," he added.
In Brazil, Rear Admiral Domingos Nogueira said the navy was battling rough weather and officials predicted the hardest task would be finding the flight data and voice recorders.
Senior French government minister Jean-Louis Borloo told French radio the recorders were believed to be at a depth of between 3,660 metres and 3,700 metres (12,010-12,140 ft). "We have never recovered black boxes that deep before and... the sea currents are powerful that far down," he said.
The unmanned French submarine was not expected to reach the 3-mile (5 km) strip of water where debris has been found before the beginning of next week.
The recorders are designed to send homing signals for up to 30 days when they hit water.
Distraught relatives who had prayed for a miracle gave up hope as experts were certain that all aboard died on the flight.
"I just want to find my son's body so that he can have a dignified burial," said Aldair Gomes, the father of Marcelo Parente, who was the head of the Rio mayor's cabinet.
France was due to hold an ecumenical religious ceremony for the relatives and friends of those on the plane at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris later on Wednesday.
So far no bodies have been sighted on flyovers. "(Our) ships are equipped to... pick up pieces of the Airbus," Nogueira said.
"Each ship has two divers on board and smaller ships to throw into the ocean to try and get pieces."
One expert said it could be among the hardest recoveries since the decades-long search to find the Titanic.
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