Brazil: Military planes and ships struggled through high seas and heavy winds Wednesday as they searched for the wreckage of an Air France jet in the Atlantic Ocean, while an investigator said the plane's black boxes may never be found.
Rescue boats from several nations were sailing toward the site to start the recovery as aviation experts tried to determine why the plane carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on Sunday night ended up in the sea.
An airplane seat, a fuel slick, an orange lifevest and pieces of white debris were spotted on Tuesday in the ocean northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.
Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said no bodies had been found and there was no signs of life.
Four boats and a tanker ship are en route to the scene but Brazil's lack of equipment to scour the ocean floor was a problem, a navy spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
Brazil was leading the search for wreckage, while France took charge of the crash investigation.
"The seas in the area are high, and that is slowing the arrival of our ships," she said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We have four divers on the way, but the first of them will not get to the scene until midday Thursday."
The official said if the black boxes are at the bottom of the sea there was nothing the Brazil navy could do as they do not have the special remotely controlled subs needed to withstand the pressure at the ocean's bottom.
"We'll really only be able to carry out recovery efforts on the surface of the sea," the official said. "If the black boxes have sunk, we don't have the equipment to look for them."
The black boxes are built to last 30 days underwater. In Paris, the head of France's accident investigation agency, Paul-Louis Arslanian, said he was "not optimistic" that rescuers could even recover the plane's black boxes.
The reason for the crash remains unclear, with fierce thunderstorms, lightning or a catastrophic combination of causes as possible theories. France's defence minister and the Pentagon have said there were no signs that terrorism was involved.
