A mini-submarine is to be used in a new search of the Atlantic this spring for the wreck of an Air France jet lost en route from Brazil.
French officials said the German submarine would start its mission around 20 March. The exploration of an area of some 10,000 sq km could last until July.
Flight 447 crashed on 1 June, 2009, killing all 228 people aboard. Flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, it was lost in bad weather roughly midway between Brazil and Senegal.
Despite three previous searches, the BBC reports the flight recorders from the Airbus A330-200 and much of the wreckage have never been recovered.
An initial search found 50 bodies and hundreds of pieces of the plane, including its torn-off tail. The last search ended in failure in May 2010.
Most of the dead were French, Brazilian or German.
