IDs of Air France victims could prove jet broke up

RECIFE, Brazil -- Authorities started to identify bodies from a jetliner crash Thursday, and the names of victims found far apart in the ocean could help prove whether the Air France plane broke up in the air as investigators link them to seat assignments.

A Brazilian ship picked up three more bodies, raising the number recovered to 44, Brazilian Air Force Gen. Ramon Cardoso said.

Rainstorms hit parts of the search area and bodies and debris were dispersed by currents, and Cardoso said Brazil's aerial search was hindered by reduced visibility.

Currents that had been taking bodies and debris toward the West African nation of Senegal were reversing and could bring them closer to Brazilian and French searchers, but the recovery effort covers a vast area, Cardoso said.

Peter Goelz, former managing director of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, said the evidence uncovered so far pointed to at least a partial midair breakup of the Airbus A330.

Goelz said the bodies found are among the best evidence investigators now have. Flight 447 was packed with 228 people and the passengers were likely in their assigned seats as the jet flew into heavy storms, he said.

"If the victims found in one part of the ocean mostly came from one part of the plane, and the victims in the other area came from another part of the plane, that is really telling you something," he said -- perhaps what parts of the plane broke apart in the air.

Coroners in the northeastern coastal city of Recife began examining 16 bodies Thursday, hoping to identify them through DNA and photos. The other bodies would be flown in Friday from the Brazilian islands of Fernando de Noronha, where they were taken by search ships.

Identification of injuries suffered by passengers also will help investigators.

Goelz noted that the pattern of injuries found on passengers of TWA Flight 800 -- which went down in 1996 off New York's Long Island -- helped investigators confirm that the nose broke off and fire blew back from the fuel tank.

Air France chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon also said recovered bodies and wreckage were crucial to the investigation.

"We will know much more, I think, after the autopsies allow us to better understand the technical causes of death and when the debris have been examined by experts," he said.

Goelz said damage to the larger pieces of debris fished from the ocean can tell experts where the pieces of the plane broke apart and perhaps why -- by forces in air or by impact with the sea.

A Brazilian ship unloaded 37 pieces of the plane Thursday for storage at an air base in the northern port city of Natal until French investigators arrive and decide where they should be sent, Brazilian Vice Adm. Edison Lawrence said.

Other pieces are still aboard ships searching for human remains and debris. Brazil's military will decide next week whether to halt the search for bodies June 19.

The first bodies found Saturday six days after the crash were recovered about 53 miles (85 kilometers) from bodies discovered Tuesday, Brazil's military said.

Investigators will calculate how far currents averaging about 5 mph (8 kph) carried the bodies before they were picked up, said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board.

"Finding those bodies that far away or that separate from the debris field is a very important clue, and could indicate a midair breakup or at least that the cabin was opened up," he said.

Yet more information could come from the plane's flight recorders. Sonar from the French nuclear submarine Emeraude are now ranging across 13 square miles (35 square kilometers) of ocean bottom a day searching for them.

U.S. military locating equipment capable of picking up signals 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) deep will arrive at the scene within days.

Finding the boxes in the deep waters presents a formidable task; they might have come to rest amid jagged underwater mountains and their acoustic signals will start to fade in about three weeks.

If a box is located, the French can send the remote-controlled mini-sub Nautile to recover it. The Nautile had a key role in the search for the wreckage of the Titanic.

So far, investigators have focused on the possibility that external speed monitors -- Pitot tubes -- iced over and gave false readings to the plane's computers. The plane emitted messages just before crashing that it was experiencing electrical failures and reduced cabin pressure.

Airbus said it sent an advisory to airlines June 8 analyzing the automatic messages transmitted by Flight 447.

One of the messages showed a change of cabin pressure equal to an altitude change of more than 1,800 feet (548 meters) per minute, said Airbus spokesman Stefan Schaffrath. But he said Airbus did not have enough information to interpret this yet.

Replacement Pitot tubes for jet models of the same type as the crashed plane arrived just three days before the fatal accident, Gourgeon said.

Air France ordered the replacements April 27 after pilots noted a loss of airspeed data in flights on Airbus A330 and A340 models, he said.

The incidents were "not catastrophic" and planes with the old Pitots are considered airworthy, Gourgeon said.

"Because I am not convinced that the sensors are the cause of the accident, and we have said it, I had no need to issue a press release the day after the accident," Gourgeon said, responding to criticism that there was a lack of transparency.

French and U.S. officials have said there were no signs of terrorism, and Brazil's defense minister said the possibility wasn't considered. But France said that had not been ruled out.

The plane's manufacturer, Airbus, encountered new problems Thursday when an A330 carrying 203 people made an emergency landing in Guam after an electrical problem sparked a small cockpit fire, Jetstar airline reported.

A pilot put out the fire with an extinguisher and no one was injured, Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway said.

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Associated Press writer Marco Sibaja reported this story from Recife and Alan Clendenning from Sao Paulo. AP writers Greg Keller and Emma Vadore in Paris, Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo and Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.