PARIS — Search crews scouring the Atlantic Ocean found the bodies of two men from an Air France jet that disappeared with 228 people on board, the Brazilian air force said Saturday, just hours after French investigators announced that the plane had been scheduled to have a part of its airspeed sensor system replaced.
The plane’s manufacturer, Airbus, had advised operators of some of its A330 aircraft to replace the part, the head of French air investigations said Saturday. It was unclear, however, if the part played any role in the disaster, and Airbus said it issued its advisory two years ago because a better part was available, not because the existing one was “a safety issue.”
The bodies and some personal items recovered Saturday — which appeared to be the first physical remains found of Flight 447 — were taken from the sea hundreds of miles off Brazil’s northeast coast, according to a Brazilian Air Force official in Recife, where the rescue operation is based, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Search crews also found a leather briefcase containing an Air France boarding pass with the flight’s number on it, Brazilian authorities said.
The key to finding the cause of the crash probably rests at the bottom of the ocean; the black boxes that are the data and voice recorders could be submerged in 3,000 to 13,000 feet of water and in rocky and muddy terrain. The boxes emit signals from a “pinger,” but those will start to fade after 30 days. The French navy is sending a nuclear-powered submarine to the area in an effort to detect the signals.
Holding up a canister about the size of a cardboard toilet paper roll, Paul-Louis Arslanian, director of France’s Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses, said Saturday in a news conference, said: “This is what we are looking for in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.”
