Brazil denies rift with France over jet disaster probe

Brazilian officials have denied that French investigators were being barred from examining bodies recovered from an Air France jet that plunged into the Atlantic, as the search for answers to the disaster continued.

"We have four French investigators accredited to participate in the examinations" of the bodies being carried out in the northeastern city of Recife, a Brazilian police spokesman told AFP .

He was responding to Paul-Louis Arslanian, director of the Investigation and Analysis Bureau (BEA), the French body in charge of the technical side of the inquiry, who complained earlier Wednesday about access to the 50 bodies fished from the ocean.

Arslanian told reporters in Paris he was "not happy" that a French medical expert sent by the BEA had not been allowed to take part in the postmortem examinations.

"We don't know where the information came from that the French investigators don't have access to these examinations," the Brazilian police spokesman said. "We can guarantee that the French embassy gave the names of the French investigators who can examine the bodies."

French and Brazilian navy ships, backed by more than a dozen aircraft, were Wednesday continuing to scour waters 1,000 kilometers off Brazil's coast for any more remains from Air France flight AF 447.

Authorities are to evaluate every two days whether to continue the operation.

A French nuclear submarine and two vessels equipped with underwater listening devices are also trying to pick up the homing beacons of the plane's black boxes.

The Airbus A330 came down on June 1 as it was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The reason for the disaster is not known.

All 228 people on board are presumed dead, and 50 bodies have so far been recovered, along with the plane's tail fin and hundreds of other parts and pieces.

Dismissed all press speculation

Arslanian warned it was "virtually certain that we will not recover the entire aircraft.

"We are doing all we can to recover the flight recorders and bodies, and we cannot say today what we will succeed in doing," he said.

The goal of the search and investigation "is to understand what happened," he said, adding: "Considering all the work that has been done and all we have at our disposal, I think we may be getting a bit closer to our goal."

He declined to detail leads being followed up by his 60-member team of investigators.

He also lashed out at press "speculation," including suggestions that defective speed probes could have played a role in the disaster.

"For now, we cannot say, and no one can say what happened. It is much too soon to go imagining scenarios in one direction or another," he insisted.

Theories about the defective probes, called pitots, surfaced after it emerged that a series of data alerts sent automatically by the plane in its final minutes showed they were giving varying and incorrect readings.

Aviation experts say conflicting airspeed data can cause the autopilot to shut down and in extreme cases lead the plane to stall or fly dangerously fast, possibly causing a high-altitude breakup.

Air France itself had initially suggested that lightning could have caused the disaster, though experts later said that was very unlikely.

The BEA, Airbus and Air France have since insisted no link has been proven between the speed monitors and the crash - although Air France upgraded all sensors on its long-haul fleet after protests from pilots.

Asked whether it was an overreaction for airlines to change their speed probes, Arslanian said it was "a legitimate approach for companies who do not want to take any risks."

- AFP