Search for Air France Flight 447 black box to continue till July 10

In the press briefings held by the BEA the investigators revealed that they believe the flight crashed into the Atlantic Ocean intact.

Through examining the damage on the wreckage, the investigation now believe that the plane did not break up mid air but was in one piece as it crashed into the ocean.

The flight hit the water belly first but was gathering speed as it fell thousands of feet from the sky.

Alain Bouillard, who is leading the investigation into the June 1 crash for the French accident agency BEA, said the sensors, called Pitot tubes, were "a factor but not the only one."

"It is an element but not the cause," Bouillard told the news conference in Paris. "Today we are very far from establishing the causes of the accident."

"Between the surface of the water and 35,000 feet, we don't know what happened," Bouillard accepted. "In the absence of the flight recorders [black boxes], it is extremely difficult to draw conclusions."

The investigators said the search for the black box will continue at least till 10 July.

The BEA published the interim report on the findings but said by no means the inference made so far are final and are expected to evolve as more information is gathered. The autopsy results have not yet been formally handed over to the French investigation team by the Brazilian authorities.

The Brazilian navy called off the search for the bodies on June 26 following nine days of search without locating any more bodies or wreckage.