Air France Crash Debris

Brazilian search crews have found large pieces of the Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.

Floating in the middle of the Atlantic, this galley kitchen is the latest piece of Air France Flight 447 to be recovered by salvage crews.

The wreckage is extraordinarily intact despite being part of an plane that experts believe broke apart in midair.

Even some of the drawers, containing a selection of ready-meals for passengers, remained wedged securely inside the unit.

Autopsies on victims of Flight 447 and debris from the plane strongly suggest the plane broke up in the air, experts have said.

Fractures in the legs, hips and arms of the Air France disaster victims recovered from the Atlantic suggest the Airbus broke up midfight.

Brazil's navy have recovered 50 bodies from the 228 who perished during the flight bound for Pairs.

Investigators have also collected more than 400 bits of debris from the ocean's surface, including large pieces which have remained intact. Experts said this would also indicate the aircraft broke up in flight.

Last night a source for Brazilian medical examiners said that fractures indicating a mid-air break up were found during autopsies on an undisclosed number of the bodies recovered so far.

A Brazilian newspaper reported yesterday that some victims were found with little or no clothing, and had no signs of burns.

Former accident investigator, Jack Casey, an aviation safety consultant in Washington, D.C. said: 'In an in-air break up like we are supposing here, the clothes are just torn away.'
He said multiple fractures are consistent with a midair breakup of the plane, which was cruising at about 34,500 feet when it went down on May 31.

'Getting ejected into that kind of windstream is like hitting a brick wall - even if they stay in their seats, it is a crushing effect,' he said. 'Most of them were long dead before they hit the water would be my guess.'

Not sure we will ever know what happened.