The Brazilian military reports that it has found two male bodies in the Atlantic Ocean close to where an Air France jet crashed last Sunday.
Brazilian air force spokesperson Col. Jorge Amaral said the bodies were recovered Saturday morning about 650 kilometres northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off of Brazil's northern coast.
The first was recovered around 9:10 a.m. ET, while the second body was recovered at 11:30 a.m. ET.
According to Amaral, search crews also found a suitcase that contained a ticket for the flight.
"It was confirmed with Air France that the ticket number corresponds to a passenger on the flight," Amaral said.
A backpack with a laptop and a vaccination card was also found.
Despite the grim discoveries, some family members of those on board are still holding out hope.
"We're shaken, but we still have hope," Sonia Gagliano, whose grandson Lucas Gagliano was a flight attendant on the plane told the O Globo newspaper. "He was a young boy, just 23 years old, and he spoke eight languages. I'm in a complete daze with all this."
Air France flight 447 was on its way from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Paris when it vanished over the ocean Sunday night with 228 people on board as it flew through strong turbulence.
Brazilian search crews first spotted wreckage on Tuesday, and have since found a number of pieces of the plane. However, French officials have disputed whether the debris was indeed from the missing jet.
Crews have been hampered by poor weather and choppy waters and had yet to find any survivors or bodies until today.
French authorities are still investigating the cause of the crash, but are focusing on messages sent by the plane that show it may have been receiving incorrect airspeed readings.
Investigators said Saturday that the airline appears not to have followed up on a manufacturer's recommendation to replace a part that monitors speed, called a Pitot tube.
"They hadn't yet been replaced" on flight 447's plane, Alain Bouillard, head of the French investigation, said.
A Pitot tube can fail if it becomes covered in ice and are heated to prevent that.
Air France had already replaced the Pitots on a different Airbus model because of pilots' reports of problems with the instrument, according a company safety report obtained by The Associated Press.
Investigators also said that not long before it vanished, the plane sent 24 automated error messages that said the autopilot had disengaged, the cabin had lost air pressure and the plane had a massive electrical failure.
With files from The Associated Press
