Air France Tail Fin Pulled From The Atlantic

The plane's black boxes were mounted in the tail section, and the fin's location could narrow the underwater search for those devices.

Time is running out to locate the devices, believed to be lying on the sea floor at a depth of up to 3.7 miles, as their homing beacons will cease to operate in three weeks.

The US Navy said the first of two towable pinger locators would arrive on Wednesday, while a French submarine will also arrive to conduct an underwater sweep.

If the black boxes are found, a French research sub - the same one used to explore the wreck of the Titanic - will be deployed to recover them.

Early suspicions are focusing on the Airbus A330's airspeed sensors, which appear to have malfunctioned in the minutes before the catastrophe according to some of the 24 automatic data warnings sent by the plane.

Investigators are looking at whether the sensors could have iced over, possibly leading the Air France pilots to fly into a storm without knowing their airspeed.

French transport minister Dominique Bussereau said the scenario could have resulted in "too low a speed, which can cause it to stall, or too high a speed, which can lead to the plane ripping up as it approached the speed of sound, as the outer skin is not designed to resist such speed."

The discovery of the tail section is a key find for search teams as it could help locate the black boxes and determine why the jet went down over a week ago.

Eight more bodies also were found at the crash site some 700 miles off Brazil's coast, bringing the total recovered to 24 since the flight disappeared with 228 people on board, according to the Brazilian Air Force.

French officials later said at least another five bodies were on a French frigate helping the Brazilian navy recovery operation.