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Recife, 29 March 2010

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[Narrator]
Recife, on the north-eastern tip of Brazil, is the base camp

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 where the final preparations are taking place for the third phase of sea searches

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 for the flight recorders from flight AF447.

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On board the SeaBed Worker and the Anne Candies

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supplies for several weeks are loaded as well as the most advanced equipment: 

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deep towed sonars, autonomous underwater vehicles and remotely operated vehicles
capable of working as far down as 6,000 metres 

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to cover the entire operations zone and to adapt to the changing rough terrain,

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all of this equipment being available as backup and above all complementary.

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[Paul-Henri Nargeolet, in charge of sea search ops.]
There is a dual system on each ship,
one for searches and the other for investigation. 


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A search system includes one or more sidescan sonars, 

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which are capable of showing images of the seabed and

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 of detecting wreckage from the airplane we’re searching for, 

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and then equipment that enables us to go down 

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and check the elements that were previously identified.

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The types of sonar are different on each boat.

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 One of the boats is equipped with a towed sonar

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 and the other, the Seabed there are AUV’s,

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 that’s to say autonomous vehicles, pretty much like a pack of vehicles

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 that work more precisely, 

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so a bit more slowly,

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 though since there are three of them they work more quickly overall,

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 doing work equivalent to that of two towed sonars and with greater precision.

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These innovative technologies that are on board the ships will be worked very hard. 

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To try to find the flight recorders,
 they will have to survey between 2000 and 3000 km² with a fine tooth comb. 

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[Frédéric Walbrou, investigator]
We were able to validate all the data

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from the first phase of the investigation,

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in particular through the data from the search and rescue phase,

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which provided data from reverse drift calculations that were made

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between phase 2 and this new third phase that is just starting. 

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Since 1st June, we have been trying
to gather the maximum amount of data 

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to try to validate these search zones.

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We were thus able to determine
that some zones had not been searched at all,

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others had only been searched in poor meteorological conditions

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so this is the data that we are sharing
with the team around the table.

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[Narrator]
Around the table are operators,
geologists, oceanographers and engineers.

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These are the scientists that will examine the sonar returns

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and the images from the seabed while looking for the wreckage and the flight recorders.

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After a week of preparation,
the SeaBed Worker leaves the port.

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[Paul-Henri Nargeolet]
We have finally weighed anchor,

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we’re off, the operation really starts here.

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We’re on our way to the zone where we’ll arrive

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 in a bit more than 48 hours,

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and we’re ready for it.

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[Narrator]
A last test session in the sea
and it will be joined by the Anne Candies

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ready to get started on the searches.