PARIS: A French nuclear submarine will arrive Wednesday in the area of the Atlantic where an Air France jet crashed to search for the black box data recorders, the government said Sunday.
A frigate equipped with a helicopter, the Ventose, has already arrived in the waters off the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha and five French spotter planes are taking part in the search, said a statement released by the prime minister’s office.
Brazil has nine surveillance planes and five ships and the United States has a plane involved in the hunt, it said.
The French nuclear submarine, the Emeraude, will arrive Wednesday.
Brazilian officials say they have pulled five bodies and wreckage from the sea after flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris went down with 228 people on board.
The two black box flight data recorders — which may hold the clues that explain the disaster — will only emit a homing signal for around a month.
“We’ll need a real stroke of luck since we don’t know the exact site of the crash, but it’s worth a try,” said French military spokesman Christophe Prazuck.
