Officials say 17 crash victims found

RECIFE, Brazil, June 7 (UPI) -- Officials in Brazil said Sunday 17 bodies have been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean at the crash site of Air France Flight 447.

More debris also was found, with a Brazilian air force official saying Brazilian radar-equipped planes had located "greater parts of the plane's body" below the surface, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The official, whose name wasn't disclosed, told the newspaper the bodies were being taken to Brazil for examination and identification.

The crash site of flight 447 is nearly 700 miles off the Brazilian coast in the Atlantic Ocean.

Officials had told CNN that in addition to the bodies, searchers recovered hundreds of items from the Air France Airbus that disappeared Monday while flying from Brazil to France with 228 people aboard.

Among the items recovered are pieces of luggage, along with seats and wing section segments from the airplane. The recovered items will be analyzed by investigators looking for the cause of the crash.

Air France says it is speeding up the replacement of pitot tubes, airspeed measuring devices on A330s like the one that crashed. The airline denied it had failed to respond to an earlier Airbus recommendation to replace the devices, the Times said.

The aircraft had sent automatic messages indicating faulty flight speed readings before the crash. Investigators were looking into whether that might have contributed to the crash.