Brazilian air force aircraft searching for an Air France plane that went missing over the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people on board have found debris from a plane, an air force spokesman said.

Military planes saw metallic objects and plane seats 650 kilometres north of the islands of Fernando de Noronha near Brazil's northern coast, but it is not known if it came from flight AF 447.

The area is near where the last contact was made with the Airbus A330 that took off for Paris from Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night (local time).

"The plan now is to focus our efforts to collect the debris and try to identify if they belong or not to the Air France plane," Brazilian Air Force Colonel Jorge Amaral said at a news conference.

"We can't really say this is part of the airplane. The command centre needs to have at least one piece of the debris with a serial number to confirm that it belongs to the airplane."

The plane was carrying 216 passengers of 32 nationalities, including seven children and one baby, Air France said.

Sixty-one were French citizens, 58 Brazilian and 26 German. Twelve crew members were also on board.

All 228 people on board are feared dead.

The Air France plane reported flying into heavy turbulence four hours after taking off from Rio and 15 minutes later it generated automatic messages reporting electrical faults.

No distress signal was received and aviation experts said they did not have enough information to understand how flight AF 447 could have disappeared without a trace.

Meanwhile, France's defence minister says a terrorist act "cannot be ruled out" of potential scenarios.

"All scenarios have to be envisaged," said French Defence Minister Herve Morin on Europe 1 radio.

"We can't rule out a terrorist act since terrorism is the main threat to Western democracies, but at this time we don't have any element whatsoever indicating that such an act could have caused this accident."

Brazilian airline TAM said the crew of one of its planes saw "bright spots" on the surface of the ocean, perhaps caused by burning wreckage early Monday (local time).

French military spokesman Commander Christophe Prazuck said earlier they are investigating the reports.

"The weather is very bad - raining and the visibility is poor," he said.

"A civilian Brazilian pilot reported orange spots on the sea just in the middle of the ocean between Africa and Brazil.

"And so this morning we have a new military patrol aircraft on the area trying to confirm this information."

"The search will continue as long as necessary. All means are deployed in the area and we'll put as many assets at their disposal as necessary," Mr Morin said.

'Very experienced'

French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo says the pilots and cabin crew on board flight AF447 were a "very experienced" team.

The 12-strong crew on the Air France jet was made up of a pilot, two co-pilots, and nine cabin crew.

Among the cabin crew were six hostesses and stewards, five of whom were French and one Brazilian.

"They were a very experienced crew with a well-maintained aircraft, who were extremely reliable," Mr Borloo said.

"This is normally the safest situation to be in."

The captain was 58 and had been an Air France pilot since 1988, the airline said in a statement.

He had 11,000 flying hours under his belt, 1,700 of which were on Airbus A330s or A340s, the airline said.

Prize-winners

Nineteen of the French passengers on a missing Air France plane were returning from a Brazilian holiday won by a company's sales team, the firm says.

"There was a competition for the best sales reps for the south-west region and nine of them won and went to Brazil for four days," said Laurent Bouveresse, chief executive of the CGED electrical equipment supplier.

The nine, aged between 25 and 35, were allowed to take a friend or partner on the trip as part of their prize, and an executive from regional headquarters in the town of Limoges also went on the trip, he said.

The sales people worked in towns across the region, he added.

"I heard [of the crash] late Monday morning, it was more than a shock, I just can't describe it," he said.

Air France planes at the Charles de Gaulle airport (file photo). (Reuters)

- AFP/Reuters

Air France Had Threat Days Before Crash

Flight 447 Black Boxes May Be Lost Forever, Investigator Says

By FEDERICO ESCHER and EMMA VANDORE

,AP

FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil (June 3) — Military planes and ships struggled through high seas and heavy winds Wednesday and found more debris from an Air France jet, while an investigator said the black boxes may never be found in the depths of the Atlantic.

     If the black boxes can't be recovered, investigators will have to focus on maintenance records and a burst of messages sent by the plane just before it disappeared.

     Meanwhile, an Air France spokesman says the airline received a bomb threat for a flight from Buenos Aires to Paris on May 27, but that warning proved to be false.

     Spokesman Nicolas Petteau said Wednesday that an Air France agency in Buenos Aires received an anonymous phone call threatening Flight 415. He said the plane, a Boeing 777, was checked by security services who found no explosive devices and the plane was allowed to leave the Argentine capital.

     France's Defense Minister Herve Morin said "we have no signs so far" of terrorism regarding the Airbus A330 plane flown by Air France that disappeared Sunday night after leaving Rio de Janeiro for Paris.

      He said all hypotheses must be studied. A Pentagon official also said there was no indication of terrorism.

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     Rescue vessels from several nations were sailing toward the site to start the recovery as aviation experts tried to determine why the plane carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on Sunday night ended up in the sea.

     Brazil was leading the search for wreckage, while France took charge of the crash investigation. Brazil lacks equipment to scour the ocean floor for the black box recorders, a Brazilian navy spokeswoman said Wednesday.

"The seas in the area are high, and that is slowing the arrival of our ships," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We have four divers on the way, but the first of them will not get to the scene until midday Thursday."

 

     A 23-foot chunk of plane and a 12-mile-long oil slick were found early Wednesday, Brazilian air force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said. Rescuers have still found no signs of life.

     The new debris was discovered about 55 miles south where searchers a day earlier found an airplane seat, a fuel slick, an orange lifevest and pieces of white debris.

The location of the new debris is consistent with where experts say currents in that part of the Atlantic would push anything on the surface.

The original debris was found roughly 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.

     Officials have released some details of the messages of the plane's final minutes, but a more complete chronology was published Wednesday by Brazil's O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, citing an unidentified Air France source.

Air France and Brazilian military officials refused to confirm the report. But if accurate, it suggests that Flight 447 may have broken up thousands of feet in the air as it passed through a violent storm, experts told The Associated Press.

     The report said the pilot sent a manual signal at 11 p.m. local time saying he was flying through an area of "CBs" — black, electrically charged cumulo-nimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning. Satellite data has shown that towering thunderheads were sending 100 mph winds straight into the jet's flight path at that time.

     Ten minutes later, the plane sent a burst of automatic messages, indicating the autopilot had disengaged, the "fly-by-wire" computer system had been switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm also sounded, indicating the deterioration of flight systems, according to the report.

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