Eithne Walls

FRENCH authorities have concluded preparations for a fresh search for Air France Flight 447 which crashed in the Atlantic killing 228 people, including three Irish women.

The mission, which is due to start at the end of the month, will repatriate any further remains discovered although it is unclear if this will be a major part of the operation.

Recovery teams will focus on locating black-box and other material from the aircraft with a view to understanding more of what took place during the disaster last June.

Without their recovery, say experts, the reasons for the mysterious crash between Rio de Janeiro and Paris last June may never be known.

The remains of Jane Deasy (27) from Rathgar in Dublin have already been located but those of Aisling Butler (26) of Roscrea, Co Tipperary, and Eithne Walls (right, 28) from Ballygowan, Co Down, are still missing.

A spokeswoman for the BEA, France's air crash investigation bureau, told the Sunday Tribune: "Of course I would say if we find a body or human remains, I think that we will try to get them [back].It's too early but I am sure this is one of the questions that will be asked and will be studied."

Salvage experts have reduced the original search area by 90% to just 1,500 square kilometres.

"The working group began this in October [and it ran] until the end of January with the help and collaboration of international experts and safety investigators," said the spokeswoman. "This work will give us the chance to reduce the work zone which is still quite high.

"We talked about the fact that probably there would be two ships but it's still a bit early to talk about that. In the coming weeks we will be issuing a press release."

Despite the uncertainty surrounding the location of further remains, investigators are confident of recovering the plane's black boxes, which could be vital in deciphering the cause of the accident.

The new, more specific search area, will include an ocean floor no deeper than 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) and efforts will initially focus on the area least explored during previous searches.

The operation will have a budget of €10m, with two equal contributions of €5m from Air France and Airbus SAS which manufactured the aircraft.