RESOLVING THE MYSTERY

Air France jet pieces found

06-09-2009 | AFP

Brazil’s navy was transporting 16 bodies to shore for identification as well as the finds that could have important clues about the accident

Panama Star FERNANDO DE NORONHA, BRAZ. Brazil's navy on Monday recovered the tail fin from an Air France jet that plunged into the Atlantic a week ago, and was transporting 16 bodies to shore for identification.

The recovery of the fin was seen as important to the search for answers as to what knocked the Airbus A330, flight AF 447, out of the sky on June 1 as it was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people on board.

The plane's black boxes were mounted in the tail section, and the fin's location could narrow the underwater search for those devices by a French submarine expected to arrive in the zone on Wednesday.

Brazilian officials meanwhile were preparing to receive the 16 bodies plucked from amid the floating debris over the weekend.

Those remains, and dozens of the plane's structural components which have also been picked up, were expected to arrive in the Brazilian archipelago Fernando de Noronha early on Tuesday.

From there the bodies would be flown to the mainland coastal city of Recife, a navy spokesman in Recife, Captain Guicemar Tabosa told reporters.

Brazilian police forensic teams have been set up to identify the bodies using dental records and DNA from relatives.

Tabosa said navy crews had not yet confirmed information given by families on the doomed flight that it appeared two more bodies had been spotted on Monday.

Brazilian and French officials said there was no hope of finding survivors from the downed plane.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in his weekly radio address on Monday that "everything was being done.. so that we can find, if possible, all the bodies, because we know how much it means for a family to receive their lost loved one."

Brazilian and French teams continued to scour the crash zone 1,100 kilometers (700 miles) off Brazil's northeast coast for more bodies and pieces of wreckage.

The clock is ticking for finding the black boxes, believed to lie on the sea floor at a depth of up to 6,000 meters (19,700 feet). Their homing beacons will cease to operate in three weeks.

The US Navy said on Sunday it would send two towable pinger locators and a crew of around 20 to the scene later this week to join the hunt for the devices.