French minister warns debris might not be from Airbus

PARIS (AP) -- France's transportation minister said Friday that French forces have found no evidence of an Airbus A330 airplane that vanished over the Atlantic and urged "extreme prudence" about suspected debris fished from the ocean.
Dominique Bussereau said he regretted that an announcement by Brazilian teams that they had recovered plane debris from Air France flight 447 turned out to be false.
Meanwhile, European planemaker Airbus sent an advisory to all operators of the A330 reminding them of how to handle the plane in conditions similar to those experienced by flight 447, which was an Airbus A330-200 version.
Bussereau said the search must continue and stressed that the priority is finding the flight recorders. The plane went down Sunday night with 228 people aboard.
Confusion broke out Thursday after the Brazilian Air Force said a helicopter plucked a cargo pallet from the sea that came from the plane, but six hours later said it was not from the Airbus.
"French authorities have been saying for several days that we have to be extremely prudent," Bussereau told France's RTL radio. "Our planes and naval ships have seen nothing."
He said it is "bad news" that the Brazilian teams were mistaken. "We would have preferred that it (the debris) had come from the plane and that we had some information," he said. LinkHere