BRAZIL’S AIR force has said a piece of debris pulled from the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday is not from missing Air France flight 447, as it had earlier reported.
The Airbus 330-200 disappeared on Sunday night when it was four hours into its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
There were 228 people from 32 different countries on board, including three Irish doctors and two Aer Lingus employees.
What caused the crash still remains unclear, although Airbus has warned pilots about faulty speed instruments following evidence that the aircraft was flying at the wrong speed during a severe thunderstorm.
A naval helicopter had pulled a 2.5 square metre piece of what authorities said was part of the baggage hold, 550 kilometres from the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando do Noronha. However they later said the piece did not have a serial number to connect it to flight 447.
“Up until this moment no piece of the plane has been recovered,” said Brig Ramon Borges Cardoso, director of the department of airspace control.
He said rain yesterday had reduced visibility in the area hampering the efforts of search aircraft seeking to guide naval ships towards debris spotted over a large area of open ocean.
Dominique Bussereau, France’s transport minister, lamented the “bad news” about the debris recovered on Thursday and said authorities involved in the search needed to act with “extreme prudence”. However she went on to praise Brazil’s efforts to find the missing jet.
France’s own search teams, operating out of Senegal, have not found any sign of the plane but Brazil’s air force insists that its aircraft have spotted wreckage of the aircraft, including a plane seat and “internal plane parts”.
The premature claim that part of the lost aircraft had been recovered is an embarrassment for Nelson Jobim, Brazil’s defence minister who earlier in the week told reporters that there was no doubt the debris spotted almost 1,000 kilometres off Brazil’s northeastern coast came from the missing jet.
Brig Cardoso said the longer the search went on the less chance there was of recovering the bodies of victims. “With every moment, the chance of finding bodies diminishes, because we are already 100 hours since the accident and this possibility becomes ever more remote,” he said.
Some of the families of passengers on board the stricken flight have flown to the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife, from where the search operation is being co-ordinated. There they will receive a full briefing on efforts to locate the plane.
