Oil tracks will help determine French plane crash site: Brazilian Navy

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RIO DE JANEIRO, June 4 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian Navy announced on Thursday that the oil tracks spotted by the search teams will make it possible to calculate where the Air France Airbus connected to the water.

According to Lieutenant-Brigadier Ramom Borges Cardoso, as the oil tracks move in the same speed as the tide, it is only a matter of multiplying the current speed by the number of hours since the plane crash.

With those figures, authorities can reduce the area where the search teams are trying to locate the plane's debris.

Brigadier Ramom informed that new objects were spotted by Brazilian Air Force planes in the early hours of Thursday. Three Brazilian Navy ships have already reached the area, he said, but have yet to spot the debris.

The items spotted on Thursday were 60 kilometers away from each other, south of the objects spotted on Wednesday. They are located near the Sao Pedro and Sao Paulo Islands, about 650 kilometers away from Brazil's Fernando de Noronha archipelago, where the collected debris will be taken.

Additionally, an object was spotted only 100 kilometers from Fernando de Noronha, and a Blackhawk helicopter headed to the site to investigate. The helicopter cannot collect any object, though that will be done by the ships in the area.

According to Brigadier Ramom, the possibility of the current taking any bodies or debris to the continent's direction is very remote, unless there is a sharp change in the tides.

So far, the rescue ships' priority was to locate any survivors or bodies of the plane's 228 occupants, but as there is still no sign of either, the collection works will be kicked off later on Thursday.

About 150 people, 11 aircraft and five Navy ships are taking part in the search for Flight 447. According to the authorities, finding any survivors or even the passengers' bodies is unlikely.