UNSOLVED

Recovered Debris Not from Flight 447

Could the plane have disintegrated mid-air?

We may be farther than we thought from knowing what happened to Air France Flight 447: The debris recovered off the Northern coast of Brazil did not come from the plane, French officials say. The search team had discovered cargo pallets in the water, but there were no wooden pallets aboard the flight, so the objects couldn't have been from the jet crash. The only physical evidence, according to some experts, is a large spot of gasoline on the Atlantic—which could mean that the plane disintegrated mid-air. But France's accident investigation agency has stressed "extreme prudence" when speculating about Flight 447, explaining that it's still most important to recover the black box before jumping to conclusions.