Air crash bodies arrive at DNA lab

The first bodies to be recovered from the crash of Air France 447 arrived at a Brazilian Air Force base in Recife, Brazil, Wednesday, the air force announced.

he 16 bodies were taken to the Legal Medical Institute in Recife for identification, the statement said. Police will perform DNA tests at their lab in the capital, Brasilia, if necessary, they said.

Another 25 bodies have been found and will go through the same procedure starting Thursday, the air force said. Official identification of the bodies will be made only by the Legal Medicine Institute, even if any of the bodies could have been identified while on Fernando de Noronha, the islands where they were first brought after being recovered.

A French nuclear submarine joined the hunt Wednesday for the flight data recorders and other wreckage from Air France Flight 447 as Brazilian air force and navy crews continued to pull bodies from the Atlantic. Bad weather and poor visibility are expected in the search area, Brazilian Air Force spokesmen said.

France is leading the investigation into what caused last week's accident when the Paris-bound flight from Rio de Janeiro plunged into the sea off the Brazilian coast with 228 passengers and crew on board.

The French nuclear submarine Emeraude began patrolling the area Wednesday morning, the French defense ministry said.

Around 400 French military personnel are involved in the salvage effort. France has also sent two tugs towing 40 tons of recovery equipment, a surveillance ship and a ship equipped for amphibious operations.

Fourteen aircraft -- 12 Brazilian and two French -- are participating, along with five Brazilian ships. The U.S. Navy will contribute two high-tech acoustic devices to listen underwater for the emergency beacons that are attached to the voice and data recorders.

The "towed pinger locators," which help search for emergency beacons on downed aircraft to a maximum depth of 6,000 meters (20,000 feet) -- will be placed aboard the French tugs.

Brazilian officials emphasized earlier this week that finding bodies was their main priority. The French are in charge of finding the voice and data recorders.

The 16 bodies retrieved Tuesday from the Atlantic were taken to the island of Fernando de Noronha for transport by helicopter to Recife. The 25 bodies previously found were put aboard a Brazilian frigate.

The first bodies were recovered about 320 kilometers (200 miles) northwest of the Brazilian archipelago of Saint Peter and Saint Paul; Tuesday's recoveries were 80 kilometers (50 miles) away.

It was not clear whether the bodies had drifted in the 1-2 knot currents or whether their separation suggested that the jet may have broken apart in the air.

The location of the crash has not been determined, because ocean currents have moved the bodies and debris. The search area covers 200,000 square km (77,220 square miles), Brazilian officials said.

The ocean depth where the debris and bodies have been found varies, but averages about 3,000 meters (nearly 9,900 feet) deep, according to the University of New Hampshire/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Joint Hydrographic Center.

Brazilian officials said the plane debris will be taken to France for investigation but the bodies would undergo forensic tests in Recife.

The cause of the crash is still not known, but investigators are looking at the possible role of airspeed sensors known as Pitot tubes, among other factors.

Air France has agreed to replace the sensors on its Airbus A330 and A340 jets, a pilots' union said Tuesday.

The airline said Saturday that it began replacing its fleet's sensors last month.

Another Air France pilots' union, ALTER, has advised its pilots not to fly planes until their Pitot tubes are replaced. ALTER, the smallest of three Air France pilots' unions, would not say what percentage of the carrier's pilots it represents.

The biggest union, SNPL, said Tuesday it has accepted Air France's assurances that no Airbus A330 or A340 will take off unless at least two of its three Pitot tubes have been replaced.

Union spokesman Eric Derivry added that there is no indication that the Pitot tubes caused the accident.

Air France said over the weekend that it began to notice in May of last year that Pitot tubes sometimes briefly iced up at high altitude on A330s and A340s. That caused "a loss of airspeed data," according to the airline -- that is, the pilots didn't know the plane's speed.

Air France decided to replace all its probes starting April 27, following laboratory tests earlier in the year, the airline said.

17 Bodies retrieved in Air France Crash

RECIFE, Brazil (CNN) -- Seventeen bodies have been recovered from last week's crash of an Air France jetliner off the South American coast, Brazil's military said Sunday.

The Brazilian navy and air force said they found nine bodies in the Atlantic Ocean, where the Airbus A330-200 went down. The crew of a French vessel taking part in the search has found eight, military officials told reporters Sunday evening.

Air France 447 disappeared over the Atlantic early Monday. The jet was en route to Paris, France, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with 228 passengers and crew aboard.

The bodies were found floating about 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) from the Brazilian coast. Items found in the same area Saturday were confirmed to have come from the jet, including pieces of the aircraft's wing section, luggage and a leather briefcase containing an airplane ticket with a reservation code for the doomed flight, Brazilian air force spokesman Jorge Amaral told CNN.

The exact location of the crash has not been determined, since ocean currents likely caused the bodies and debris to drift in the six days since the crash. And two key pieces of evidence -- the flight data and cockpit voice recorders -- remain missing, and could lay on the ocean floor.

The part of the ocean where the debris and bodies have been found ranges between 19,685 and 26,247 feet (6,000 and 8,000 meters) deep. The search area covers 77,220 square miles (200,000 square km), an area nearly as big as the
country of Romania.

Fourteen aircraft -- 12 Brazilian and two French -- were participating in the recovery efforts, along with five Brazilian ships and one French frigate. In Washington, a U.S. defense official told CNN the U.S. Navy will contribute two high-tech acoustic devices to listen for emergency beacons still operating in deep water.

The "towed pinger locators" help search for emergency beacons on downed aircraft to a maximum depth of 20,000 feet, and will be placed aboard two French tugs that are part of the search efforts, the official said.

Recovery of bodies and debris is significant not only for families, but for crash investigators, said Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

"Even if they don't find anything else they can get some very important clues from the pieces that they do find and from the human remains," Schiavo told CNN Saturday.

She said investigators would be able to discern if there was an explosion from possible residue on the bodies or other items. Or, if water is found in the lungs of victims, investigators would know the plane went down intact, she said.

Investigators in Paris said Saturday that the Air France flight sent out 24 automated error messages lasting about four minutes before it crashed. The error messages suggest the plane may have been flying too fast or too slow through severe thunderstorms it encountered before the crash, officials said.

Schiavo said the four minutes of automated signals sent from the plane "was a very long time."

Investigators also reported the airline failed to replace a part on the aircraft, as recommended by the manufacturer, Airbus.

Airbus had advised airlines to update equipment that monitors speed, known as Pitot tubes. The recommendation was a result of technological developments and improvements, an Airbus spokesman told CNN. The change was not mandatory, and the spokesman would not comment on Air France's failure to follow the advice.