Brazilian authorities say autopsies have revealed fractures in the legs, hips and arms of Air France disaster victims.
Experts said yesterday the injuries, coupled with the large pieces of wreckage pulled from the Atlantic, strongly suggested the plane broke up in the air.
With more than 400 bits of debris recovered from the ocean's surface, the top French investigator expressed optimism about discovering what brought down Flight 447, but he also called the conditions - far from land in very deep waters - 'one of the worst situations ever known in an accident investigation.'
The six most recently recovered bodies were taken to a mortuary in Recife yesterday for identification.
Searchers from Brazil, France, the US and other countries are methodically scanning the surface and depths of the Atlantic for signs of the Airbus A330 that crashed on 31 May after running into thunderstorms en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
All 228 people on board were killed.
Brazilian Air Force Colonel Henry Munhoz said in a news conference that several body parts, as well as pieces of the plane and luggage, were found in the search area by the French amphibian ship Mistral.
Still missing are the plane's flight data and voice recorders, thought to be deep under water.
French-chartered ships are trawling a search area with a radius of 50 miles, towing US Navy underwater listening devices.
The black boxes send out an electronic tapping sound, but these locator beacons will begin to fade after just two more weeks.
Without the black boxes to help explain what went wrong, the investigation has focused on a flurry of automated messages sent by the plane minutes before it lost contact; one suggests external speed sensors had iced over, destabilising the plane's control systems.
Air France has replaced the sensors, called Pitot tubes, on all its A330 and A340 aircraft, under pressure from pilots who feared a link to the accident.
Brazil's Federal Police and state medical authorities in Recife who are overseeing the autopsies said in a statement that two French investigators, a dental expert and a doctor, had been following the examinations as observers since 10 June.
