FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil (Reuters) – Search crews flying over the Atlantic found debris from a crashed Air France jet spread over more than 55 miles of ocean on Wednesday, reinforcing the possibility it broke up in the air.

Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said the existence of large fuel stains in the water likely ruled out an explosion, undercutting speculation about a bomb attack.

“The existence of oil stains could exclude the possibility of a fire or explosion,” he said at a news conference in Brasilia. “If we have oil stains, it means it wasn’t burned.”

Experts said extreme turbulence or decompression during stormy weather may have caused the Airbus A330, which took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Paris on Sunday night, to splinter over the ocean with 228 people on board.

Two Brazilian navy ships arrived in the crash area, about 685 miles northeast of Brazil’s coast, but had not yet retrieved any debris by nightfall. French officials said they may never discover why the plane went down as the flight data and voice recorders may be lost at the bottom of the ocean.

Air force pilots searching the area have reported no signs of survivors. Officials said recovering bodies may be extremely difficult.

“As well as bodies sinking, you also have problems along the coast of Pernambuco (state) that you know about,” Jobim said in reference to sharks. He added bodies could take several days to float to the surface.

Newly spotted traces of the plane included a 12-mile (20-km) fuel stain and various objects spread across a 3-mile (5-km) area, including one metallic object 23 feet in diameter.

The Air France plane sent no mayday signals before crashing, only automatic messages showing electrical faults and a loss of pressure shortly after it entered stormy weather.

‘DESTRUCTION WAS TOTAL’

“I continue to think violent turbulence caused structural damage to the plane,” said Jose Carlos Pereira, former head of Brazil’s airport authority Infraero.

“Its fall was localized but destruction was total,” Pereira told Reuters.

Aviation trade publications focused on warnings in recent months issued by U.S. and European regulators about electronic systems on A330s and A340s that could throw planes into sharp dives. The directives covered ADIRUs — air data inertial reference units — that feed crucial information to the cockpit to help fly planes.

With officials struggling to explain how a modern aircraft could have crashed in stormy weather that is routine on the transatlantic route, there was speculation a bomb could have caused the worst crash in Air France’s 75-year history.

The airline said on Wednesday it had received an anonymous telephone warning that a bomb was on a flight leaving Buenos Aires on May 27, four days before the crash. A spokesman said the plane was checked, no bomb was found and the aircraft left an hour and a half late. He added that such alerts were relatively common.

MINI-SUBMARINE ON ITS WAY

France is dispatching a mini-submarine that can explore to a depth of 19,680 feet and will try to locate the Airbus’ flight data and voice recorders, which could shed light on the crash.

The recorders are designed to send homing signals for up to 30 days when they hit water, but there is no guarantee they even survived the impact with the sea, said Paul Louis Arslanian, head of France’s air accident investigation agency.

Given a broken seabed and depths of up to about 2 miles, finding flight recorders will be very difficult.

“I am not totally optimistic. We cannot rule out that we will not find the flight recorders,” Arslanian said.

Brazil will gather aircraft debris on Fernando de Noronha, a sparsely populated volcanic archipelago and nature reserve off its northeastern coast.

It has mobilized 11 air force planes, four navy vessels with divers and a tanker for the retrieval operation that Jobim said was being carried out in a 120-mile (193-km) radius.

An air force plane equipped with a radar and infrared sensor continued the search throughout the night.

Jorge Amaral, a Brazilian air force colonel, said the long strip of metal found on Wednesday was the biggest piece that search crews had seen so far.

“It could be part of the fuselage or the tail,” he told reporters.

The French investigation will have its first report ready by the end of the month, and will be led by Alain Bouillard, who took charge of the investigation into the crash of an Air France Concorde in 2000.

France held an ecumenical religious ceremony for relatives and friends of those on the plane at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Wednesday, attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

In Rio de Janeiro, Air France released a list of Brazilian passengers on board, excluding a few names by request of family members. A memorial mass will be held there on Thursday.

RIO DE JANEIRO, June 3 (Reuters) – Brazilian navy divers rushed on Wednesday to reach the wreckage of an Air France jet and start the grim job of pulling debris from the Atlantic Ocean, where the plane with 228 people went down in the the airline’s worst disaster in its 75-year history.

Four navy ships with recovery equipment and a tanker were headed to a 3-mile (5 km) strip of water strewn with airplane seats, an orange buoy, wiring, hunks of metal and jet fuel stains about 745 miles (1,200 km) northeast of the coastal city of Recife.

Rear Admiral Domingos Nogueira said the navy was battling tough weather as officials predicted the hardest task would be finding the flight data and voice recorders that hold clues to why the plane fell out of the sky during a severe storm in the middle of the night.

Distraught relatives who had prayed for a miracle gave up hope as experts were certain that all aboard died on the flight, which left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday night bound for Paris. [ID:nN02520837]

“I just want to find my son’s body so that he can have a dignified burial,” said Aldair Gomes, the father of Marcelo Parente, who was the head of the Rio mayor’s cabinet.

So far no bodies have been sighted on flyovers by the air force, which spotted evidence of the catastrophe on Tuesday, allowing the navy to mount a retrieval operation.

“The ships are equipped to arrive and pick up pieces of the Airbus,” Nogueira said. “Each ship has two divers on board and smaller ships to throw into the ocean to try and get pieces.”

Helicopters would then be used to take wreckage of the Airbus A330 from the ships to a base on the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, 430 miles (700 km) from the crash site.

MYSTERY

Officials said the recorders needed to identify the causes of the mysterious crash could be on the ocean floor at a depth of 6,600 to 9,800 feet (2,000 to 3,000 metres).

The recorders are designed to send homing signals for up to 30 days when they hit water but many do not float well.

One expert said it could be among the hardest recoveries since the decades-long search to find the Titanic. [ID:nL2690712]

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he was confident that the black boxes would be located.

“I think a country that can find oil 6,000 metres (19,685 feet) under the ocean can find a plane 2,000 metres (6,500 feet) down,” he told reporters on Tuesday in Guatemala, referring to recent oil finds by Brazil’s state energy company in ultra-deep waters.

Authorities were at a loss to explain how a storm could have caused the plane, operated by three experienced pilots, to crash without sending a mayday call. [ID:nL2721255]

Officials from France have arrived in Brazil to lead the investigation with help from Brazilian teams.

Brazil’s air force last had contact with Flight AF 447 at 0133 GMT on Monday when it was 350 miles (565 km) from its coast. The last automated signals, which reported an electrical failure, were received about 40 minutes later.

One theory is that a lightning strike or brutal weather set off a series of failures. But lightning routinely hits planes and could not alone explain the downing, aviation specialists said. [ID:nL1719357]

Two Lufthansa jets believed to have been in the same area half an hour before the Air France mishap could provide clues for investigators, the World Meteorological Organization said. [ID:nL21026278] (Additional reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio and Eduardo Simoes in Sao Paulo; Writing by Terry Wade; Editing by Todd Benson and Bill Trott)

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Search planes scoured the dark waters of the Atlantic Ocean early on Tuesday, looking for the remains of an Air France jetliner that disappeared in a severe storm with 228 people on board.

The Airbus A330 went missing on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said there was little chance of finding any survivors.

France and Brazil sent military aircraft and ships to try to find wreckage on high seas between Brazil and West Africa.

Brazilian carrier TAM said the crew of one of its planes saw “bright spots” on the surface of the ocean, but Brazil’s air force said a merchant ship in the area found no signs of burning debris from the Air France jet.

“We will search all night long and keep going through dawn,” said Colonel Jorge Amaral of the Brazilian air force. “We have to work as if it were possible to find survivors.”

If none are found, it would be the worst disaster in Air France’s 75-year history and the deadliest since one of the company’s supersonic Concorde planes crashed in 2000.

Air France flight 447 left Brazil on Sunday night and lost contact with air traffic controllers in the early hours of Monday morning.

It was carrying 216 passengers of 32 nationalities, including seven children and one baby, Air France said. Sixty-one were French citizens, 58 Brazilian and 26 German. Twelve crew members were also on board.

Tearful relatives in Paris and Rio were attended to by teams of psychologists.

One of the Brazilians on board was Pedro Luis de Orleans e Braganca, a direct descendant of Dom Pedro II, the last emperor of Brazil, a spokesman for the royal family told Reuters.

Executives from French tire company Michelin, the Brazilian unit of German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp, and Brazilian mining giant Vale were also among the passengers, said company officials and family members.

ELECTRICAL FAILURE

The Air France plane flew into turbulent storms four hours after taking off from Rio and 15 minutes later sent an automatic message reporting electrical faults, the airline said.

The company said a lightning strike could be to blame and that several of the mechanisms on the Airbus 330-200, which has a good safety record, had malfunctioned.

But aviation experts said lightning strikes on planes were common and could not alone explain a disaster. Sources with access to flight data sent to the World Meteorological Organization said two Lufthansa jets passed through the same area of turbulence on Monday without incident.

Experts also said the plane could have suffered an electrical failure, effectively leaving the pilots “blind” and making the plane more vulnerable in an area notorious for harsh weather.

Brazil’s air force, which last had contact with the plane at 1:33 GMT on Monday (9:33 p.m. EDT on Sunday) when it was 565 km (350 miles) from Brazil’s coast, sent six jets to look for it and the navy dispatched three ships to help. Aviation specialists said it could take a long time to locate the black box.

France sent one of its air force planes from West Africa and several ships. It also asked the United States to assist in locating the crash site using satellite data.

Air France said the plane, which was powered with General Electric engines, went into service in April 2005. It last underwent maintenance in a hangar in April this year.