French investigators have said that they have found parts of an Air France plane that crashed over the Atlantic while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in June 2009.
The plane went down roughly half way between Brazil and Senegal on 1 June 2009, killing all 228 people on board including three Irish doctors. The incident was the deadliest crash in Air France's history.
The French Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) said in a statement 'during search operations in the sea carried out in the last 24 hours... the team on board the Alucia located parts of a plane.'
The statement said that 'these elements were identified by BEA investigators as belonging to the wreckage of the A330-203 plane, flight AF 447.'
BEA Director Jean-Paul Troadec also told AFP that investigators have hope of finding the plane's black boxes because the debris area was relatively concentrated.
'The favourable news is that the debris area is relatively concentrated. And this gives us hope of finding the black boxes.' he said.
Troadec said the parts of the wreckage that had been found consisted of 'engines and certain elements of the wing.'
A new search for the wreckage had been launched on 25 March with the help of the Alucia, an American exploration vessel - the fourth attempt to find the debris in hopes of discovering what caused the crash.
The official cause remains undetermined, but it has been partly blamed on malfunctioning speed sensors used by Airbus, with Air France accused of not responding quickly enough to reports that they might be faulty.
The Alucia came from Seattle in the northwest coast of the United States carrying three Remus submarines that were to search the ocean floor.
Air France and Airbus are being investigated for alleged manslaughter in connection with the crash are paying the estimated $12.7m (€8.9m) cost of the search.
The latest search includes a much larger area of a 46-mile (75-kilometre) radius around the last known position of Flight 447.
A third search of the ocean floor to try to locate the black boxes ended in failure last May.
