Debris Found in Atlantic--Only Sea Trash

By Peter Allen and Mail Foreign Service

The investigation into downed Air France flight 447 was thrown into chaos today when red-faced investigators admitted that debris found floating in the ocean was not from the doomed jet.

Military investigators had said that they had 'without a doubt' found vital parts of the Airbus A330 in deep ocean 600 miles off the coast of Brazil.

Among the debris was a wooden pallet that they believed had been used to load luggage on to the plane, which disappeared over the Atlantic early Monday morning with 228 people on board.

But today investigators said the wooden pallet and two buoys recovered was not from Flight 447, but just floating waste believed to be from a ship.

Earlier, investigators had also claimed to have spotted a plane seat and a seven-metre piece of fuselage floating in the ocean from search planes thousands of feet up.

They have not yet confirmed if those pieces of debris were from Flight 447 or not.

However with investigators admitting the fuel found floating in the water was not from the plane, speculation that the plane had fallen victim to a terrorist attack was growing again. French investigators said no cause, including a terrorist bomb, had yet been ruled out

French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent,' Bussereau told France's RTL radio. 'Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing.'He said it is 'bad news' that the Brazilian teams were mistaken. 'We would have preferred that it (the debris) had come from the plane and that we had some information,' he said.