Still no sign of Brazil crash victim’s body

Objects pulled from the sea have been identified as belonging to Middlesbroughborn Arthur Coakley, but of him there has been no sign.

However, at the family home in Sandsend, Whitby, his wife, Patricia, has no doubt her husband is dead.

She said yesterday: “I have had nothing definite about Art himself – but I knew by Monday morning.”

Mr Coakley, a 61-year-old father- of-three, was among 228 people – including five Britons – who were aboard Air France Flight 447 that took off from Rio de Janeiro on May 31.

The A330 Airbus disappeared en route to Paris and wreckage was later found in the Atlantic 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off northern Brazil.

On Saturday, police liaison officer Andy Richardson told Mrs Coakley her husband’s laptop computer and his briefcase had been among the recovered debris.

“I asked him how they knew they were his for sure – and he told me the briefcase had Art’s boarding pass in it,” said Mrs Coakley.

Her husband was a structural engineer who had been in Brazil on a business trip.

Mrs Coakley said their three children – Dominic, 31, Patrick, 29 and Mise, 25 – had been coping well with the tragedy and added: “I’ve been trying to lead by example.”

Yesterday, a French nuclear submarine joined Brazilian vessels to comb the depths for the “black box” flight recorders which should help determine exactly what caused the disaster.

The submarine will try to pick up the boxes’ acoustic beacons, which are expected to fade 30 days after the crash.

Without information from the recorders, investigators have focused on the possibility that external speed monitors iced over and gave false readings to the aircraft’s computers as it flew into thunderstorms.

■ It was reported two passengers on the flight shared the names of radical Muslims.

French secret service staff are investigating, but it is understood it may be a coincidence.