Ships search for airliner bodies and clues

Hopes were fading today of finding survivors from the seven crew on an airliner that plunged into the Mediterranean during a training flight.

A minesweeper was searching for the Airbus A320’s flight recorders after two bodies were found off the south coast of France.

“We could only find some plane debris. The majority of the plane went into the sea, but so far we have only found the biggest sections of the debris,” one rescue worker said.

The jet had undergone checks at a maintenance centre in Perpignan, near the border with Spain.

It was leased to charter airline XL Airways Germany and was due to return to service for Air New Zealand next month.

The crew included two German pilots, as well as a pilot and three engineers working for Air New Zealand and an aircraft inspector from the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority.

“The search and rescue authorities are not optimistic, given the conditions, of finding any survivors,” an airline spokesman said.

The jet plunged into the Mediterranean as it was approaching Perpignan airport, from which it had taken off on a circular flight an hour earlier.