FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil — Military planes located more debris from an Air France jet Wednesday as the first navy ship arrived at the scene in the mid-Atlantic.
High seas and heavy winds slowed the recovery effort and delayed arrival of crucial deep-water submersibles.
Search vessels from several nations pushed toward the floating debris, including a 23-foot chunk of plane and a 12-mile-long oil slick that Brazilian pilots spotted from the air.
Rescuers have found no signs of life from the plane, which was carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, air force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said.
Cause still a mystery
A Brazilian navy spokeswoman said a patrol boat was close to one debris field after spending two days pushing through rough weather to reach the site. She spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with policy.
Flight 447 disappeared minutes after flying into an extremely dangerous band of storms Sunday night, but what exactly caused its electrical systems and cabin pressure to fail remains a mystery.
The “black box” cockpit recorders could be miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. If they can’t be recovered, investigators will have to focus on maintenance records and a burst of messages sent by the plane just before it disappeared.
French and Brazilian officials had announced some details of these messages, but a more complete chronology was published Wednesday by Brazil’s O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, citing an unidentified Air France source, and was confirmed to The Associated Press by an aviation industry official.
Likely fell in pieces
The burst of automatic messages sent from the jetliner before it disappeared with 228 people on board suggests it probably broke apart in the skies and fell to the ocean in pieces, said the official, who isn’t authorized to discuss details of the probe publicly.
The pilot sent a manual signal at 11 p.m. saying he was flying through an area of “CBs” — black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that come with violent winds and lightning.
Satellite data have shown that towering thunderheads were sending 100-mph updraft winds into the jet’s flight path just then.
Ten minutes later, a cascade of problems began: Automatic messages indicate the autopilot had disengaged, a key computer system had switched to alternative power, and controls needed to keep the plane stable had been damaged. An alarm sounded indicating the deterioration of flight systems.
Three minutes after that, more automatic messages reported the failure of systems to monitor air speed, altitude and direction.
The last automatic message, at 11:14 p.m., indicated loss of cabin pressure and complete electrical failure — catastrophic events in a plane that was probably already plunging toward the ocean.
