Relatives of 228 people who died when an Air France jet crashed into the Atlantic two years ago were divided last night over plans to bring the wreckage — and bodies still trapped within — to the surface after it was located by robots at a depth of 12,800ft (3,900m).
An association for the families said that the news would spark anguished debate. “There is the question of identifying the bodies. We don’t know what state they will be in,” said Robert Soulas, of Help and Solidarity.
Michel Sapanet, a forensic scientist, said he was optimistic that the victims could be identified, since the low temperatures and lack of oxygen on the seabed would have preserved them.
Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the French Environment Minister, said that an operation to remove the wreckage would begin in about a month.
Despite repeated searches, investigators had found only 49 bodies and a small proportion of the plane until this weekend. Relatives expressed anger that it had taken two years to find the main part of the Airbus A330, although it was eventually discovered just a few hundred metres from its last known position.
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Three robots, operated by a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, found the wreckage. The robots, which can stay underwater for 20 hours, have been using sonar to scan a mountainous seabed region called the Mid-Ocean Ridge.
Jean-Paul Troadec, director of the Office of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), the French air accident agency, said he was hopeful of recovering the flight recorders from the Airbus A330, but could not say if they would be functional after two years in the water.
Experts believe the plane may have crashed after its speed sensors iced up, but they lack hard evidence to support this theory. The BEA says that speed sensor failure cannot alone explain the accident.
Air France and Airbus were both placed under formal investigation in France last month on suspicion of manslaughter in connection with the crash.
The Airbus A330, heading to Rio de Janeiro from Paris on June 1, 2009, crashed during a storm off Brazil.