Feed: CNN.com - WORLD
Posted on: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 8:03 PM
Author: CNN.com - WORLD
Subject: 153 bodies identified from 2009 Air France crash

A total of 153 bodies have been identified from the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447, authorities said Tuesday.

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153 bodies identified from 2009 Air France crash

From Naima Benallal, For CNN

November 8, 2011 -- Updated 1803 GMT (0203 HKT)

An undersea image of the crashed engine of the Airbus A330 that crashed in the Atlantic en route from Brazil to France.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

All but one of the 154 bodies recovered have been identified
Tests to identify the last body are ongoing, official says
The plane crashed in June 2009; 228 people died

Paris (CNN) -- A total of 153 bodies have been identified from the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447, authorities said Tuesday.

Robert Soulas, president of an organization of victims' families, and Col. Jerome Servettaz, who is in charge of research for the French national police's air transport division, said 103 bodies have been identified since the end of 2009. Fifty had been identified in 2009.

The Airbus A330 had 228 people on board when it plunged into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, on its way to France from Brazil.

Of the remaining 75 bodies, 74 are still in the water. The remains of the last of the recovered bodies are at the Medical Institute in Paris, where tests are ongoing to determine that person's identity, Servettaz said.

It took four searches over the course of nearly two years to locate the bulk of the wreckage and the majority of the bodies in a mountain range deep under the ocean. Many of the bodies and the plane's recorders were recovered earlier this year.