Le Figaro (Paris) on the recovery mission.
"An Awacs radar aircraft is going to carry out a 'mapping' [cartographie] of the débris to try and determine the scene of the accident and thereby make possible the recovery of the black boxes. This mapping will be completed by a Falcon 50 which will take off from Natal, in Brazil, and by a fresh Atlantique 2 flight....
"The Pourquoi pas is en route to the area. Equipped with two robot submarines--a Nautilus mini-submarine and a research robot capable of operating in depths up to 6,000 metres--this Ifremer [French maritime research institute] vessel is eight days' sailing distance from the area. Its mission is to try to find and recover the Airbus' black boxes, whose signals will be transmitted for no more than thirty days. They can be recovered from depths of up to 4,000 metres in the Atlantic. 'A needle in a haystack,' as one expert summed it up on Tuesday. In the race against the clock to find these black boxes, the French military too has committed additional resources to the operation. Two Breguet Atlantic 2 'submarine-hunter' aircraft equipped with radar and long-range infrared scanners, as well as a Falcon 50 designed to detect pirates and drug-runners and an Awac radar aircraft will provide aerial coverage."