Around the World: France

400 debris pieces found

Search teams have recovered more than 400 pieces of debris from Air France Flight 447 but investigators still do not know why the plane crashed into the Atlantic, the French accident chief said yesterday.

Paul-Louis Arslanian, head of the French air accident investigation agency BEA, expressed "a little more optimism" about the investigation as the discovery of so much debris has narrowed the vast search zone off the northeast coast of Brazil.