Air France plane crash: Bodies of pilot and crew member identified

“Among the victims found in the sea search, two members of the Air France crew have been identified: the flight captain and a steward”, the company said in a press release.

The Airline chief executive officer extended his condolences to the families of the victims on behalf of Air France.

The pilot, Marc Dubois; 58, had 11,000 hours flying experience and according to Air France 1,700 of these miles were accumulated flying Airbus’ A330 and A340.

The president of the pilots association, Jean Serrat, told BBC Brasil that Dubois started long distance flying in 2005 and started piloting the Airbus A330 in 2007.

The rescue teams have to date recovered 50 bodies and search operations are expected to continue.

The cause of the crash remains unknown; search teams have been combing an area in the Atlantic with a radius of 50 miles in the hope of detecting signals from the crashed jet’s black boxes.

The Airbus A330 plane plunged into the Atlantic after running into thunderstorms en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris killing all 228 people on board.