Click to play videoNew Delhi: Air France crash investigators are now gearing up to the prospect that they may never know what really happened to the Airbus A330-220 that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean with 228 passengers on board.
The scattered and sunken remains of plane along with the black boxes may never be found and hundreds of grieving relatives across the world may never get those answers.
"Maybe today, I'm realising he might not come back. But I kept phoning him on his mobile and he's pretty useless with mobiles, he hates them. He never has his switched off. But his is switched off and I haven't tried it today, but yesterday it was ringing so maybe they're not at the bottom of the sea. That's my hope but I think it's maybe fading today," said Patricia Coakley, wife of Arthur Coakley who was on the plane.
Patricia's worst fear may just come true as Air France officials have no doubt in their mind that none of the 228 on board survived the crash.
Patricia, along with the world, has now moved beyond hope to curiosity. All eyes are now on the investigations into the crash. The Bureau of Aviation investigation has began the probe on a rather pessimistic note.
"It would be useless to tell you that if we don't have the recorders I will be very, very pessimistic about reaching established facts," Bureau of Aviation chief Paul L Arslananian said.
Recovery mission was on full swing on Wednesday.
Brazilian naval ships assisted by French mini-submaires got into the act on Wednesday.
They recovered plane seats, metal debris, an orange bouy and wiring.
But the most crucial of them all - the black box - is no where in sight.
"Even if we recover recorders I cannot guarantee that we will go any further than this," said Arslananian.
So with no data recorders in hand the probe now rests on hypothesis, on speculations as to how and why the sturdy jet dropped out of the sky.
Lightening or brutal weather could have brought it down..But that has never happened in the last four decades.
Pilot error, mechanical defects or even terrorism isn't being ruled out.
Whatever the reason the world is united in the grief of hundreds of families like Patricia's.
Brazil is observing three days of mourning while thousands are likely to gather at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris along with President Nicolas Sarkozy to honour the passengers of the doomed flight.
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