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Brazil defends jet debris sea search

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-06 00:25

RECIFE -- As Brazil and France disagreed Friday about whether pieces of a downed Air France jet have been found in the Atlantic, investigators used the last messages from the plane to try to avoid future disasters.

Soldiers load boxes labeled in Portuguese 'Bag for corpse' at the base of search operations for the missing Air France Flight 447 in Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, Thursday, June 4, 2009. [Agencies]

Brazilian officials have insisted for three days that military pilots have spotted wreckage from Flight 447 scattered across the ocean's surface. Air Force Brig. Gen. Ramon Cardoso again expressed confidence Friday that at least some of the objects -- an airplane seat, a slick of kerosene and other pieces -- are from the plane that vanished Sunday with 228 people on board.

"This is the material that we've seen that really was part of the plane," Cardoso said.

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But ships guided by planes in the search area have been hampered by extremely poor visibility, and have recovered no wreckage. "We don't have any information yet that any of the ships are near any of the objects," Cardoso said.

The only piece retrieved so far, a cargo pallet, turned out to be sea garbage. Like other suspicious objects, it had to be hauled up and checked out, said Brazilian Navy Adm. Edson Lawrence.

"There is a lot of garbage in the sea, and sometimes what might seem to be wreckage is actually trash," Lawrence said Friday.

French officials stopped short of criticizing their Brazilian counterparts, but France's Transportation Minister Dominique Bussereau said his own country's searchers have found no signs of the Airbus A330.

"French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent," Bussereau told France's RTL radio. "Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing."

A French Defense Ministry official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, also questioned the Brazilian claims, saying French teams "cannot precisely confirm the zone where the plane went down."

Cardoso also said a large oil slick spotted by search plane pilots was not from the Airbus, but that authorities believe another slick of kerosene was probably from the downed passenger jet.

Prosecutors in Paris opened a manslaughter probe, their office said Friday -- a routine step whenever French citizens die overseas.

Bussereau said the priority is finding the flight voice and data recorders that could help explain the cause of the world's worst civilian aviation disaster since 2001.

Since these "black boxes" may be miles below the surface, investigators are looking for clues in the messages sent from the plane's computers just before it disappeared. One theory: outside probes that feed speed sensors may have iced over, giving incorrect information to the plane's computers. The autopilot may have then directed the plane to fly too fast or too slow when it encountered turbulence from towering thunderstorms.

Airbus sent an advisory to airlines late Thursday reminding them how to handle the A330 in similar conditions.

Airbus spokesman Justin Dubon said the message was sent after the French agency investigating the crash said the doomed flight had faced turbulent weather and inconsistency in the speed readings by different instruments.

That meant "the air speed of the aircraft was unclear," Dubon said.

In such circumstances, flight crews should maintain thrust and pitch and -- if necessary -- level off the plane and start troubleshooting, Dubon said.

Meteorologists said the Air France jet entered an unusual storm with 100 mph (160 kph) updrafts that acted as a vacuum, sucking water up from the ocean. The moist air rushed up to the plane's high altitude, where it quickly froze in minus-40 degree temperatures. The updrafts also would have created dangerous turbulence.

The jetliner's computer systems ultimately failed, and the plane broke apart likely in midair as it crashed into the Atlantic on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris Sunday night.

The Pentagon has said there are no signs terrorism was involved. Brazil's defense minister said the possibility was never considered. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner agreed that there is no evidence supporting a "terrorism theory," but said "we cannot discard that for now."

"Nothing leads us to believe that there was an explosion, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one." he said in Rio de Janeiro Thursday. "All the paths are open and we will not give priority to a single premise because that would be immoral."

Brazil's Air Force was flying relatives of victims to the search command post in the northeastern city of Recife Friday to tour the operation and ask questions. Recife has a large air force base where debris and any human remains would be brought.