Brazil database to help identify Air France crash victims

French investigators will use a Brazilian DNA database to help identify victims of an Air France crash two years ago.

All 228 people aboard Air France Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris died when the Airbus A330 plunged into the Atlantic in 2009. Investigators are still trying to determine the cause. In April, subsea robots retrieved the plane's black box flight recorders and several bodies. A ship carrying the remains and aircraft parts is scheduled to arrive in Bayonne, in France, today. Nelson Marinho, who lost a son on the flight and is president of a Brazilian victims' families' association, said the French have agreed to use Brazil's DNA database to ID victims. "After that, the bodies will be repatriated to their families," he said after meeting France's BEA investigators and representatives from French, Italian and German victims' families' associations in Paris.

He said some did not want the wreck disturbed, but added "most want to get on with their lives and you only get on with your life after a funeral."

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