Brazilian military pilots hunting Tuesday for a missing Air France jet spotted an airplane seat, an orange buoy and signs of fuel in a part of the Atlantic Ocean with depths of up to three miles. Defense Minister Nelson Jobim told a media conference in Rio de Janeiro “there are no doubts” that jet fuel slicks and debris, including a seat from a plane, were from flight AF 447, which had been flying from Rio to Paris early Monday when it went missing with 228 passengers. The debris was scattered over a five-kilometer area, he said, “confirming that the plane fell at this spot.” Jobim said three merchant vessels were in the debris zone and the first of several Brazilian navy vessels would arrive early Wednesday. “They will start the work to recover these items that were spotted” early Tuesday by Brazilian air force planes, he said. France said it would send a ship capable of deep-water exploration. A US spy plane was also diverted from drug interdiction efforts to help with the effort. The pilots spotted two areas of floating debris – but no signs of life – about 35 miles apart, about 410 miles beyond the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, near Flight 447's path from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, said Air Force spokesman Jorge Amaral. “The locations where the objects were found are toward the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted,” Amaral said. “That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis.” Two Americans living in Rio de Janeiro and three young Irish doctors returning from a two-week vacation in Brazil were on board. Michael Harris, 60, a geologist, and his wife Anne, 54, were headed to Europe for work and vacation. On board the flight were 61 French citizens, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, nine Chinese and nine Italians. A lesser number of citizens from 27 other countries also were on the passenger list. Investigators on both sides of the ocean are trying to determine what brought the Airbus A330 down , with few clues to go on. Potential causes include violently shifting winds and hail from towering thunderheads, lightning or some combination of other factors. The crew made no distress call before the crash.
