Low visibility hampers search for French plane debris

Submitted by Vox Bikol on Sat, 06/06/2009 - 15:16

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 6 -- The Brazilian Air Force informed on Friday that bad weather conditions on the Air France Flight 445's crash site are making the search for the aircraft's parts more difficult.

According to Brigadier Ramon Borges Cardoso, head of the Airspace Control Department, no debris was located in the past hours, though the aircraft involved in the search are still making their rounds, in order to spot more objects, but the area in which they are able to fly was reduced due to the weather.

Despite that, he said, new reconnaissance flights are scheduled for the five areas where debris were spotted in the past days.

On Thursday, the Air Force announced that the material collected from the sea does not belong to the Air France Airbus. One of the pieces, a cargo pallet, was made of wood, unlike the ones present in the plane.

The larger oil track spotted at the sea did not belong to the Airbus either, authorities stated, according to them, the amount of oil in the Airbus was not enough to leave such a large track. However, a second track, which may be from the Airbus, was spotted by the search teams.

Other objects were spotted by the Air Force planes, but have yet to be collected from the sea.

The possibility of finding survivors or even the bodies of the Flight 445's occupants has become more unlikely, with the search efforts entering the fifth day. (PNA/Xinhua)