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AFP - Thursday, June 4

A French military aircraft joins the search for Flight AF 447 off Cape Verde. Investigators say they may never find the black boxes that could explain why an Air France jet crashed into the ocean as naval teams trawled deep Atlantic waters.

FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil (AFP) - - Investigators said on Wednesday they may never find the black boxes that could explain why an Air France jet crashed into the ocean as naval teams trawled deep Atlantic waters.

An inquiry has begun into the cause of Monday's disaster, but the scattered and sunken remains of the jet will have to be recovered before the hundreds of grieving relatives across the world can expect any answers.

In particular, investigators will want to get a hold of the Airbus A330's black box flight data recorders, which may be lying in Atlantic Ocean waters as deep as 6,000 metres (19,700 feet) and 500 kilometres (312 miles) from land.

The crash is the worst in the airline's history with 228 people on board.

The director of the French air investigation agency, Paul Louis Arslanian, said he was "not totally optimistic" the boxes would be recovered from the "deep and mountainous" place into which they are thought to have sunk.

"We can't rule out not finding the recorders," he told a news conference in Paris, adding that even if they are found there is no guarantee the speed and altitude data and cockpit recordings would be enough to solve the mystery.

A naval mission was launched after the debris was spotted off Brazil's coast, and ships heading to the zone are carrying two mini-submarines, the best hope of tracking down the boxes, which ought to emit a location signal.

The first of Brazilian vessel was to arrive early Wednesday, joining three cargo ships from France and the Netherlands that were rerouted to the area.

A Brazilian air force plane with night-vision sensors has been sweeping a zone 500 kilometres northeast of Brazil's Fernando do Noronha archipelago, itself 400 kilometres from the mainland, officials said.

Another three air force aircraft were to be deployed after dawn, when visual sweeps would also be made for signs of bodies.

Defense Minister Nelson Jobim on Tuesday confirmed that the spot in Brazilian waters was the crash site of the Air France Airbus A330, and a spokesman for the French general staff confirmed this.

"The operation is now changing from being an aerial mission covering a vast expanse of the ocean to a naval operation focusing on a much more limited area," Captain Christophe Prazuck told AFP.

The wreckage extinguished any lingering hopes of finding survivors and confirmed the worst civil aviation accident since 2001, when an American Airlines jet crashed in New York killing all 260 people on board.

Brazil on Tuesday announced three days of national mourning. Christian and Muslim services were to be held in Paris on Wednesday, including one in Paris' Notre-Dame cathedral to be attended by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The flight was four hours into its 11-hour voyage from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when it broadcast automatic warnings indicating multiple electrical and pressurisation failures and ceased contact with controllers.

The pilots did not issue a distress call.

A team of investigators from France's BEA air safety agency is already in Brazil, the Brazilian air force said. In Paris, prosecutors launched a formal judicial inquiry.

Any human remains located would be taken by ship to Fernando de Noronha, where they would be flown out on air force aircraft.

More than half of those traveling on the Air France jet were either French or Brazilian. The others came from 30 countries, mostly in Europe.

The 216 passengers included 126 men, 82 women, seven children and a baby. The crew comprised 11 French nationals and one Brazilian.

Air France has suggested the four-year-old jet was struck by lightning , a fairly common hazard that by itself should not knock out a modern airliner.

Other theories advanced by experts include pilot error, mechanical defects or even terrorism. French officials have refused to rule out any possibility, after initially suggesting the crash was accidental.

From Yahoo! News; see the source article here.