A Brazilian air force spokesman said on Tuesday that debris possibly from the missing Air France plane had been found.

Jorge Amaral said one aircraft seat, one orange life buoy, engine oil and kerosene were spotted floating in the Atlantic Ocean about 650 km northeast of the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha by search planes.

A Brazilian spotter jet first detected some metallic debris and some non-metal material by radar signal feedbacks at around 1 am Tuesday (0400 GMT) in the ocean. Then the air force sent a C-130 Hercules, which spotted at around 6:49 am (0949 GMT) an aircraft seat, one orange life buoy, as well as engine oil and kerosene floating in the ocean.

No signs of life were found in two sightings of the separate debris areas, which are about 60 km apart.


A Brazilian Air Force radar plane at Fernando de Noronha airport preparing for the search of the Air France flight 447 bound for Paris that plunged into the Atlantic just a few hours after taking off on late May 31 from Rio de Janeiro.((Xinhua/AFP Photo)

The aircraft seats and other debris were found along the path the missing plane had taken, but the authorities could not immediately confirm they was from the plane, which with 228 passengers on board, vanished on Sunday night about four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro for Paris.

Officials need more identification to be sure the debris came from the airliner, the spokesman said.

He said at present a French merchant ship is the closest to the area of the debris. It could collect the debris if permitted by the French government.

Brazilian military ships are not expected to arrive in the area until Wednesday.

The discovery came more than 24 hours after the jet went missing. Flight 447, an Airbus 330-200 bound for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, lost contact with the control center shortly after its takeoff from Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. (2200 GMT). It was expected in Paris on Monday at 11:15 a.m. (0915 GMT).

The four-year-old plane was last heard from at 0214 GMT on Monday. Since local time early on Tuesday, five spotter jets, three Brazilian and two French, have been searching the missing airliner under the command of the Brazilian Air France.

The search zone was identified based on the last signal from the airliner, which was around 1,100 km off northeastern Brazil and 2,000 km off the coast of Senegal in West Africa.

"The search will continue as long as necessary. All means are deployed in the area and we'll put as many assets at their disposal as necessary," French Defence Minister Herve Morin told Europe 1 radio on Tuesday.

French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said that relatives of the passengers could be flown to the search zone to watch the search operation if they so wished.

With all 228 on board feared dead, it could be the world's worst aviation disaster since 2001.

The cause of the disaster remains a mystery. Air France said it could have been hit by lightning. Other potential causes include violently shifting winds and hail from thunderheads, and the area in the Atlantic Ocean where the plane is suspected to be down, used to be called by sailors as The Doldrums, where a calm can quickly become a violent storm.

The 216 passengers came from 32 countries, including nine from China, 61 from France, 58 from Brazil and 26 from Germany. The crew included 11 French and one Brazilian.

Source: Xinhua