Brazilian military airplanes found a 5-kilometer (3-mile) path of wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean, confirming that an Air France jetliner carrying 228 people crashed in the area, Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said Tuesday. Jobim told reporters in Rio de Janeiro that the discovery “confirms that the plane went down in that area,” hundreds of kilometers from the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha. Jobim said the line of wreckage included metallic and non-metallic pieces, but did not describe them in detail. No bodies were seen at the crash site of the Airbus in which all aboard are believed to have died. The discovery came just hours after authorities announced they had found an airplane seat, an orange buoy, and signs of fuel in a part of the Atlantic Ocean with depths of up to 4,800 meters (three miles). Jobim said recovery of the airplane's cockpit voice and data recorders would be difficult because of the ocean depth where the wreckage was found. “It's going to be very hard to search for it because it could be at a depth of 2,000 meters or 3,000 meters (6,500 to 9,800 feet) in that area of the ocean,” he said.
