One more French plane Friday joined the search for the missing Air France Flight 447 and two more Brazilian ships are heading to the waters where the plane is believed to have crashed, the Brazilian military said.
The plane, named Atlantique Rescue D, is the fourth French aircraft to join the search effort, which is coordinated by the Brazilian Air Force from the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, 550 km off Brazil's northeastern coast, said a joint statement from the Brazilian Navy and Air Force.
The aerial search team now has 12 planes and one helicopter. Moreover, two more ships are on their way to join the three Brazilian Navy ships sweeping the area where Flight 447 is believed to have crashed.
France also announced that it is sending two more navy ships and a nuclear submarine to the region. The sub, scheduled to reach the possible crash area next week, has sonar equipment which will help to locate the black box somewhere on the sea bed up to 6,000 meters underwater.
The search efforts have reached the fifth day Friday, but no debris of the ill-fated Airbus 330, which vanished over the Atlantic Ocean early Monday, have been recovered.
None of the objects, initially spotted by military pilots, pulled out Thursday by the searching ships, belong to Flight 447, according to Brazilian authorities.
The search operation is now more focused on the search for debris, as the possibility of finding survivors or bodies becomes more and more remote.
(Xinhua News Agency June 6, 2009)
