Plane crash
June 3, 2009
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister Francois Fillon joined crew members and executives from Air France as well as relatives and friends of some of the victims at a packed service at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Wednesday.
Catholic and Muslim services were held in a number of place in Paris.
"We pray for the spouses, the parents and children who have lost their loved ones," the archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, said at the Notre Dame service. "And also for the personnel of Air France who will continue to fly."
On board the plane were 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, nine Chinese and nine Italians. A lesser number of citizens from 27 other countries also were on the passenger list, including two Americans.
Brazil has announced a three-day period of mourning.
"It could have been us," Air France steward Yohann Pinault told news agency AP as he arrived at the Notre Dame Cathedral. "These are buddies. These are the people we worked with."
Black box
The memorial service began as Brazilian air force planes continued to search for wreckage spotted on Tuesday from the Airbus A330-200 that crashed into the Atlantic while traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on Sunday night.
Flight 447 disappeared minutes after flying into a storm but what exactly caused its electrical systems and cabin pressure to fail remains a mystery.
Navy ships fitted with recovery equipment, mini submarines and military planes were reported to be struggling through heavy winds and high seas as they search for the debris around 650 kilometers (400 miles) off Brazil's northern coast.
But officials say that rescuers may not find the most crucial piece of evidence that could shed light on why Flight AF 447 heading from Rio to Paris with 228 people on board vanished over the Atlantic on Monday.
The head of the French civil aviation ministry's bureau of investigation, Paul-Louis Arslanian, told a press conference in Paris on Wednesday he was "not optimistic" that rescuers could recover the plane's black boxes.
"This catastrophe, which is the worst that our country has witnessed in terms of aviation, took place in a very difficult region... so the investigation will not be easy ... but we are not giving up," Arslanian told reporters, warning that the inquiry could take a long time to wrap up.
He added there would be no speculation and that it was "essential we check and verify everything."
If rescuers don't find the black boxes, investigators should be prepared to continue the probe without them, he said.
"No doubts" about plane wreckage
Brazilian Defense Minister Nelson Jobim told reporters in Rio de Janeiro late on Tuesday "there are no doubts" that the debris, which included seats and spilled jet fuel, came from the ill-fated Air France plane.
French military official Captain Christophe Prazuck agreed, but said there could be no formal confirmation until pieces of debris had been recovered and analyzed.
"The operation is now changing from being an arial mission covering a vast expanse of ocean, to a naval operation focusing on a much more limited area," he said.
The waters of the Atlantic are notoriously deep and finding the wreckage promises to be a tough task. One expert said it could be the most difficult recovery since the search to find the Titanic.
No hypothesis
There has been much speculation about what sealed the fate of the Airbus 330 carrying passengers from more than 30 countries. Original suggestions that it could have been due to a lightning strike were refuted by aviation experts on the grounds that it would take more than that to cause a modern plane to crash.
Other theories include lightning coupled with violent turbluence, mechanical defects, pilot error or even terrorism. Speaking on Tuesday, French Prime Minister, Francois Fillon said "no hypothesis is being favored at the moment."
The World Meteorological Organization said two Lufthansa jets, believed to have flown over the same area less than an hour before the Air France plane disappeared, could help to unravel the mystery behind the disaster.
tkw/AFP/reuters
Editor: Chuck Penfold