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Plane seats believed to belong to the missing Air France jet were found by investigators scouring the Atlantic today.
The seats were found among other metal debris 400 miles north-east of Brazil by the country's air force.
Search groups were racing against time to find flight AF447's black box to discover what brought the jet crashing into the ocean.
The Airbus A330-200, which vanished from radar screens in the early hours of yesterday, sent an automatic message signalling the electrical system had failed. Experts say finding the black box flight recorder is imperative to discovering what happened after controllers lost contact with the aircraft.
Kieran Daly, editor of internet news service Air Transport Intelligence, said: “If it's not recovered we may never know exactly what happened and the implications of this would be enormous.
“Those involved in the search and investigation will move heaven and earth to make sure the black box is found.”
France and Brazil sent military aircraft and ships to try and locate wreckage between Brazil and West Africa. Brazilian airline TAM said the crew of one of its planes saw “bright spots” early today on the surface of the ocean, perhaps caused by burning wreckage.
America was said to be offering help with satellite reconnaissance.
The first of three Brazilian ships was expected to arrive in the area tomorrow, while a French frigate, sent from the Caribbean, and another ship from Portugal, were also travelling to join the search.
The task is immense: the crash site could be anywhere in an enormous area of open ocean with depths as great as 15,000 feet.
