Attempt to lift bodies from sea

SEARCH PARTIES scouring the sea bed off Brazil’s northeast coast are expected to attempt to bring to the surface tomorrow the bodies of some of the victims of the Air France aircraft that crashed into the Atlantic in June 2009.

Air France flight 447 crashed into the ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Paris, killing all 228 passengers and crew – including three Irish women.

After four major search operations, specialist teams finally located the plane’s black boxes this week and hope their contents will help explain the cause of the crash.

The attempt to recover bodies from the sea bed, at a depth of 3,900m (12,800ft), presents a major technical challenge. Investigators have been attempting to temper the hopes of victims’ relatives. Whereas robots could take hold of the black boxes with relative ease, they said, it would be much more difficult to recover individual bodies.

Technicians believe, despite two years having passed since the crash, the extreme cold and absence of oxygen at such depths may have helped preserve the human remains. The bodies are believed to be inside a section of the cabin that is largely intact.

Meanwhile, the black boxes are due to arrive in Paris in the coming days, with experts at the BEA, France’s air crash investigation unit, hopeful they will help solve the mystery of the worst crash in Air France’s history.

“The outside appears to be in relatively good shape,” said a BEA spokeswoman, but it would only be possible to see if the recorder was “usable” once it was opened.