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New Air France debris found, explosion unlikely
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-04 08:35

With officials struggling to explain how a modern aircraft could have crashed in stormy weather that is routine on the trans-Atlantic route, there was speculation a bomb could have caused the worst crash in Air France's 75-year history.

New Air France debris found, explosion unlikely
Picture released by the Brazilian Air Force showing the crew of an Hercules C-130 searching for victims or debris of Air France flight 447 which crashed in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1 with 228 people on board while en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. [Agencies] 
The airline said on Wednesday it had received an anonymous telephone warning that a bomb was on a flight leaving Buenos Aires on May 27, four days before the crash. A spokesman said the plane was checked, no bomb was found and the aircraft left an hour and a half late. He added that such alerts were relatively common.

Given the challenging location of the crash, its cause may never be known.

"I am not totally optimistic. We cannot rule out that we will not find the flight recorders," said Paul Louis Arslanian, the head of France's air accident investigation agency.

Mini-sub on its way

France is dispatching a mini-submarine that can explore to a depth of 19,680 feet (6,000 metres) and will try to locate the Airbus' flight data and voice recorders, which should shed light on the crash.

The recorders are designed to send homing signals for up to 30 days when they hit water, but there is no guarantee they even survived the impact with the sea, Arslanian said.

Brazil is leading its search effort from Fernando de Noronha, a sparsely populated volcanic archipelago and nature reserve off its northeastern coast.

It has mobilized 11 air force planes, four navy vessels with divers and a tanker for the retrieval operation that Jobim said was being carried out in a 120-mile (193-km) radius.

New Air France debris found, explosion unlikely
Paris Archbishop Andre Vingt-Trois (R), French President Nicolas Sarkozy (C) and first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy leave the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris after an ecumenical church service on June 3, 2009 for relatives and families of the passengers of Air France's flight 447 that vanished Monday over the Atlantic Ocean. [Agencies]
Jorge Amaral, a Brazilian air force colonel, said the long strip of metal found on Wednesday was the biggest piece that search crews had seen so far.

"We are considering this 7-metre piece to be part of the plane, possibly part of the side, a piece of steel. It could be part of the fuselage or the tail," he told reporters.

The French investigation will have its first report ready by the end of the month, and will be led by Alain Bouillard, who took charge of the investigation into the crash of an Air France Concorde in 2000.

France held an ecumenical religious ceremony for relatives and friends of those on the plane at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Wednesday, attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy.