llagonne66, the point of the photo of the Brazilian general is that they first searched along the track, and subsequently ran their grids to the right of the track.
Several days later, they finally ran a grid to the left of the track and the LNP, and they found the debris field. By that time, five days in, the currents had scattered the field, which led to two years of frustration, trying to backtrack on the supposed drift to determine the origin point.
Lesson learned, if you don't find it right away, be systematic in your grids, rather than looking where you think it might be.
Recovery of the boxes should be much easier in this instance. Apprehension about ever recovering AF447's recorders was because of the bottom, full of crevices, canyons, and cliffs.