14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators under the gruesome task of searching the waters of the Atlantic Ocean for debris and bodies from the Air France Airbus A330-200 that crashed on June 1st, 2009, some 680 miles (1,090 kilometers) Northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off the northern coast of Brazil, recovered 15 more corpses from the waters on Sunday, Reuters informs. After more than a week since Flight 447, taking people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, collapsed, reports of what actually happened are scarce, but the main lead is that the aircraft crashed due to turbulences and severe lightnings.
Two more bodies were found on Saturday, alongside the additional seven the Brazilian navy and air force recovered on Sunday. A French ship, dispatched to aid the rescue efforts, also picked up eight bodies two days ago, the Brazilians say, without giving any details of the find. The seven corpses recovered by the Brazilians were taken to the Fernando de Noronha islands, approximately 230 miles off the main coast.
"Hundreds of items are being found and being stored until we know where they should go," a spokesman for the Brazilian Air Force, Henry Munhoz, shares. He has talked to reporters in the northeastern city of Recife, where everything recovered from the aircraft, including the bodies, will eventually be taken for event reconstruction. At this point, the rescue efforts are conducted by 11 Brazilian surveillance planes, and a radar aircraft (capable of picking up objects in the water), two French airplanes, five Brazilian Navy ships, as well as by a single French one.
Additionally, due to the gravity of the situation, the French government dispatched a nuclear-powered submarine to the region, to search for the black boxes on the aircraft. Because of the large depth at the crash site, it's impossible for divers to directly go under and recover the boxes, without even knowing their locations. According to the flight documents, there were 228 people on the flight, 216 passengers and 12 crew members, and they are all presumed dead. Until now, 24 casualties have been confirmed.
The Airbus A330-200 is generally considered to be a very safe plane, and more than 50 air operators that have it rushed to its defense, saying that the event was isolated. However, reports of faulty speed sensors existed prior to the crash, and Airbus was in discussions with Air France over the best method of replacing them. Authorities from France, Brazil, Airbus and Air France all said that it was too early to pinpoint the cause of the accident, but that investigators were analyzing a number of automated error messages that the plane sent out a few minutes before collapsing.