Debris found is not from Air France flight after all

Brazilian officials on Friday retracted assertions that debris spotted in the Atlantic Ocean was wreckage of Air France Flight 447, and experts warned that the possibility of locating debris and determining the cause of the crash was fading.

The Brazilian air force said that debris picked up Thursday was not that of the Airbus A330, as Defense Minister Nelson Jobim had said. Moreover, officials said a fuel slick they previously said was caused by the ditched airliner may have come from a ship.

The Rio de Janeiro-to-Paris flight disappeared after flying into turbulence 400 miles off Brazil’s northeastern coast and is believed to have crashed, killing all 228 aboard. The cause remains a mystery.

The pilots sent no verbal alerts, and the only sign of distress was a burst of messages sent automatically by the plane.

The voice and flight data recorders that may provide clues are thought to be thousands of feet below the surface on the ocean floor.

The Brazilians’ retraction caused a mild rebuke from the French transportation secretary, Dominique Bussereau, who urged “extreme caution” in any public statements concerning the crash.

“I remind you that our planes and vessels haven’t seen anything,” Bussereau told reporters. “It was our Brazilian friends who said they saw things.”

As of Friday evening, ships and airplanes combing a 4,000-square-mile area of the Atlantic had recovered no debris, he said.

Brazilian air force spokesman Ramon Borges Cardoso said a big fragment thought to be part of the airplane was in fact a wooden pallet and “something we consider as trash.”

Meanwhile, the Brazilian government said the air force was flying family members of some victims to Recife, on Brazil’s northeastern coast, to await results of the investigation.

Also on Friday, Air France announced that it was changing the number of the daily Rio-Paris flight to AF-445.

Air France declined to comment on an Associated Press report that the airline is replacing instruments that help measure air speed on its medium- and long-haul Airbus jets.

Experts have theorized that the pilots, who had thousands of hours of combined flying time in Airbus jets, may have flown into the disturbance at the wrong speed, possibly because of an instrument malfunction.

Saying it was not implying any blame, Airbus sent out a notice to airlines Thursday that emphasized proper procedures for flying through disturbances.

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Kraul is a special correspondent.

Special correspondent Devorah Lauter in Paris contributed to this report.