Air France 447 Wreckage Found

The disappearance of Air France Flight 447 over the deep water Atlantic while en route from Rio to Paris on June 1, 2009, shocked the world and left a web of mysteries. What happened to bring the Airbus A330 with 228 people aboard down in the middle of the dark night?

Last week, at least a few of those questions were answered. The BEA, France’s aviation investigation authority, announced that it had located wreckage on the sea floor, nearly 13,000 feet below the surface.

Fifty bodies of passengers were reportedly found, as well. And sections of every major section of the airplane, including the wings, engines and tail, were spotted. But what of the search for the flight recorders? These are the so-called “black boxes” that will presumably give investigators their first solid clues as to what happened to bring down the flight without warning and without the pilots having made a distress call. A new mission, to recover bodies, wreckage, and to find and recover the recorders, will launch soon and will be on site around the end of the month.

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