RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim says a 3-mile (5-kilometer) path of wreckage found in the Atlantic Ocean confirms that an Air France jet crashed in the sea.
Jobin said Tuesday that discovery of the debris by Brazilian military pilots "confirms that the plane went down in that area" hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha.
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Debris seen on Air France route; no signs of life
Seat cushion, life jacket among items spotted in Atlantic; 228 feared dead
RIO DE JANEIRO - An airplane seat cushion, a life jacket, metallic debris and signs of fuel were found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday by Brazilian airplanes searching for a missing Air France airliner.
The debris was spotted from the air by Brazilian military pilots searching 410 miles north of the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, roughly along the path that the jet was taking before it disappeared with 228 people on board, said Air Force spokesman Jorge Amaral.
There were no signs of life in two sightings of separate debris areas about 35 miles apart.
"The locations where the objects were found are towards the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted," Amaral said. "That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis."
Amaral said authorities would not be able to confirm that the debris is from the plane until they can retrieve some of it from the ocean for identification. Brazilian military ships are not expected to arrive at the area until Wednesday.
The discovery came more than 24 hours after the jet bound from Rio to Paris went missing, with all feared dead.
Rescuers were still scanning a vast sweep of ocean extending from far off northeastern Brazil to waters off West Africa. The 4-year-old Airbus A330 was last heard from at 10:14 p.m. EDT Sunday.
Investigators on both sides of the ocean were trying to determine what brought it down. Potential causes included shifting winds and hail from towering thunderheads, lightning or a combination of other factors.
'Very long investigation' ahead
Even if the debris is confirmed to be of the Air France flight, the rescuers' work will be arduous.
"The research area overhangs an underwater mountain range as big as the Andes," Prazuck said. "The underwater landscape is very steep."
France's junior minister for transport, Dominique Bussereau, predicted a "very long investigation, it could be several days, several weeks, or several months."
French police were studying passenger lists and maintenance records, and preparing to take DNA from passengers' relatives to help identify any bodies. If there are no survivors, as feared, it would be the world's worst aviation disaster since 2001.
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France's Defense Minister Herve Morin said "we have no signs so far" indicating terrorism was involved, but told French radio "all hypotheses must be studied."
Alain Bouillard, who led the probe into the crash of the Concorde in July 2000, was put in charge of the accident investigation team.
President Barack Obama told French television stations the United States was ready to do everything necessary to find out what happened to the missing plane. France has sought U.S. satellite help to find the wreckage.
International passenger list
On board the flight were 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, nine Chinese and nine Italians. A lesser number of citizens from 27 other countries also were on the passenger list, including two Americans.
Among them were three young Irish doctors, returning from two-week vacation in Brazil. Aisling Butler's father John paid tribute to his 26-year-old daughter, from Roscrea, County Tipperary.
"She was a truly wonderful, exciting girl. She never flunked an exam in her life — nailed every one of them — and took it all in her stride," he said.
Air France was helping some passengers' relatives at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, where some 40 people remained Tuesday, and at another center in Rio.
France's parliament will hold a moment of silence later Tuesday, and the French soccer team will wear black arm bands and hold a moment of silence ahead of a match against Nigeria on Tuesday night.
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