Search continues for the flight data recorders of the Flight AF 447, which was headed from Rio De Janeiro to Brazil with 228 people on board and went missing on Monday.
It is presumed that the aircraft was caught in violent weather, as powerful Atlantic storms are common near the equator. Wagdi Habashi, a professor of mechanical engineering at McGill University said, "It’s still mystifying because we also hear that the debris separated in two places, that they’re separated by 60 kilometres — so if that’s true that would indicate that the airplane probably broke up in mid-flight, and that’s why it’s spread out over a large area”, reports CBC’s Metro Morning.
Aviation officials are not very optimistic about finding the flight recorders.
"We cannot rule out that we will not find the flight recorders. I cannot rule out the possibility that we might end up with a finding that is relatively unsatisfactory in terms of certainty", said Paul Louis Arslanian, the head of France’s civil aviation agency, on Wednesday.
French and Brazilian navy ships have closed in on an area 650 km of the Brazil’s coast where debris has been spotted. Other wreckage has also been found, about 90 km from the debris found initially.
Poor weather conditions are making search operations more difficult and since the black boxes are believed to be at a depth of 3,700m, they would be hard to find, said French government minister Jean-Louis Borloo.
"We have never recovered black boxes that deep before. The sea currents are powerful that far down”, he added.