Following the discovery of two passenger bodies and a briefcase, investigators planned to continue combing a huge swath of ocean Sunday in search of more evidence of doomed Air France Flight 477. The French agency investigating the disaster, meanwhile, said Saturday that airspeed instruments on the plane were not replaced as the maker recommended before the flight. The head of the agency cautioned, however, that it is too early to draw conclusions about what role that may have played in the crash, Associated Press reported. Brazilian officials are focusing on the recovery of victims and plane wreckage, not the plane's black box data and voice recorders, which could reveal why the jet crashed. Finding the black boxes is the mission of the French government, which is leading the crash investigation, with help from the United States. But the Brazilian investigators' recovery of the bodies of two male passengers and a briefcase on Saturday could potentially establish a more precise search area for the crucial black boxes. The U.S. Navy is sending two high-tech devices to French ships that will help them locate the boxes, a senior U.S. defense official told The Associated Press on Saturday. The Towed Pinger Locators, which can detect emergency beacons to a depth of 20,000 feet (6,100 meters), are being flown to Brazil on Monday with a U.S. Navy team, said the official, who requested anonymity because the decision, which came in response to a request from France, has not been announced. The team will deliver the locators to two French tugs that will use them to listen for transmissions from the black box, the official said. Brazilian investigators searching a zone of several hundred square miles (square kilometers) for debris recovered the bodies of two male passengers Saturday morning about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of where the flight emitted its last signals _ roughly 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast. Brazilian air force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said an Air France ticket was found inside a leather briefcase. «It was confirmed with Air France that the ticket number corresponds to a passenger on the flight,» he said. Admiral Edison Lawrence said the bodies were being transported to the Fernando de Noronha islands for identification. A backpack with a laptop and a vaccination card also was recovered.
