First Air France Bodies Found

(NEWSER) - Brazil's Navy and Air Force gave up their search for Air France Flight 447 victims today, citing the difficulty of finding bodies and wreckage 25 days after the crash, Reuters reports. "It's already been nine days without seeing any bodies," a Brazilian officer said. French ships will remain, seeking black boxes that may help solve the mystery of the crash. Fifty-one bodies and 600 pieces of wreckage have been recovered so far. More»

Pilots say they've seen even more; ships on the way to retrieve them

(NEWSER) - Brazil's military has found three more bodies from the Air France crash in the Atlantic today, officials tell the AP, bringing the number of recovered bodies to 5. Search pilots report seeing more on flyovers of the debris field 45 miles from where the jet sent out its last distress signals; ships are on their way to retrieve them. More»

Crash victims pulled from wreckage could be preserved by icy depths

(NEWSER) - A French search team has pulled another 75 victims of the Air France Flight 447 crash out of the briny depths in recent days, a spokesman for the French military police said today. He would not say what condition the bodies were in, but Reuters notes that the first two bodies recovered from the crash—who were found still strapped to their airline seats at a depth of 12,800 feet—were well-preserved thanks to the icy temperatures at that depth. More»

(AP) - Bodies recovered in the Air France disaster show multiple fractures in the legs, hips, and arms, a Brazilian official said today. Experts said such injuries suggest the plane broke up in the air, and a spokesman for Brazilian medical examiners said autopsies on some of the 50 bodies recovered so far showed the fractures. More»

(NEWSER) - Autopsy reports indicate that Air France flight 447 did not crash because of a terrorist strike, the Independent reports. Examinations of the first 16 bodies—all recovered whole—show no signs of explosion, fire, or penetration by shards of metal. The autopsy details, leaked to the Brazilian press this weekend, leave authorities all the more baffled by the fatal crash. More»