Investigators have discovered the wreckage of an Air France Airbus A330 which crashed in mysterious circumstances almost two years ago.
The aircraft, flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, came down in a storm in June 2009 with 228 people on board. A French judge recently filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France over the crash.
A fourth attempt to locate the aircraft’s voice and data recorders started last month. The wreckage was located in the past 24 hours, investigators in Paris are reported to have said.
The search has involved dives to depths of up to 13,120ft with the use of special robots to examine the ocean floor between Brazil and West Africa. Manufacturer Airbus says no one can know for sure how the crash occurred unless the black box flight recorders are found.
The French Bureau of Investigations and Analysis said that parts of the Airbus had been located by the searchers, led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “These parts have been identified by investigators as belonging to the wreck of the A330-203, Flight AF 447,” it said.