AccuWeather.com reports in the area where Brazilian aviation officials reported Tuesday finding debris, ocean depths average just over 9,000 feet. It has not been confirmed whether this debris was from the Air France aircraft that went missing over the Atlantic Sunday evening. However, if the plane did go down in this depth of the ocean, salvage efforts will almost be impractical.
To put things in perspective, the Titanic lies at a depth of 12,600 feet, a depth that requires special submarines to reach it. Once it has been confirmed that the debris is from the Air France jet, the next issue will be finding the plane on in the deep ocean.
The ocean currents in the search area go from west to east. The debris field will be traveling with the ocean currents toward the African coast. The typical speed of the ocean current is about 5 mph. At that speed it will take about a week before any debris would reach the African coast.
Once the airplane is found, the salvage efforts will be hampered by heavy thunderstorms. These thunderstorms will develop on a daily basis as the Intertropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ becomes more active over the next several months.
In addition, large clusters of thunderstorms will roll off the African coast about every few days. If conditions are right, the thunderstorms can form into tropical depressions or tropical storms. Thus salvage experts will likely have to fight heavy storms and rough seas almost daily while trying to reach the remains of the airplane.
According to Brazilian aviation officials, wreckage was found in the Atlantic Ocean over 400 miles off the northern coast of Brazil. The debris sighted includes metallic objects and plane seats.
Story by AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity
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