Brazilian jets searching for an Air France airliner that vanished over the Atlantic Ocean have reportedly spotted plane wreckage.
The South American country's air force located the debris in the Atlantic Ocean, but reports conflicted over where exactly the discovery was made.
A seat from a plane, bits of white material, an orange buoy, a barrel and traces of oil grouped in two floating patches 60 kilometers apart were found, according to an air force statement.
Brazil air force spokesman Jorge Amaral said authorities could immediately confirm the wreckage was from the missing plane.
The debris was found north east of the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha.
The Airbus A330 went missing on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with 228 people on board.
If no survivors are found, it would be the worst disaster in Air France's 75-year history, more deadly than the crash of one of the company's supersonic Concorde planes in 2000.
Air France flight 447 left Brazil on Sunday night and lost contact with air traffic controllers in the early hours of Monday morning.
It was carrying 216 passengers of 32 nationalities, including seven children and one baby, Air France said.
Sixty-one were French citizens, 58 Brazilian and 26 German, five British and three young Irish women. Twelve crew members were also on board.
The Air France plane flew into turbulent weather four hours after taking off from Rio and 15 minutes later sent an automatic message reporting electrical faults, the airline said.
The company said a lightning strike could be to blame and that several of the mechanisms on the Airbus 330-200, which has a good safety record, had malfunctioned.
But aviation experts said lightning strikes on planes were common and could not alone explain a disaster.
They also said the plane could have suffered an electrical failure, effectively leaving the pilots "blind" and making the plane vulnerable in an area notorious for bad weather.
The United States agreed to assist in locating the crash site using satellite data.
http://www.news.sky.com
It seems to me as if there are more plane crashes in the past few years.
Well then...you haz no soul