Debris in ocean doesn't belong to Air France plane

Published on Friday 5 June 2009 22:28

NO EVIDENCE of debris from an Airbus A330 aircraft that vanished over the Atlantic with 228 people on board has been found, France's transportation minister said yesterday.

Dominique Bussereau urged "extreme prudence" about suspected debris fished from the ocean. He said an announcement by Brazilian teams that they had recovered aeroplane material from Air France flight 447 was false.

Confusion broke out yesterday after the Brazilian air force said a helicopter plucked a cargo pallet from the sea that came from the plane, but then said six hours later that it was not from the Airbus.

The plane went down on Sunday night with 228 people on board in the world's worst aviation disaster since 2001.

France's defence minister and the Pentagon have said that there were no indications that it was the result of terrorism. Brazil's defence minister said the possibility had never been considered.

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said experts had not found signs that would back up a "terrorism theory". He continued: "But we cannot discard that for now.

"Nothing leads us to believe that there was an explosion, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one."