Air France 'black box' hunt ends

France's accident investigation agency has abandoned a search for the 'black boxes' from the Air France passenger jet that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean.

The research ship leading the hunt had left the area of the crash and would soon arrive in Senegal, concluding the "second phase" of the effort, it said.

Experts will gather in the coming weeks to decide whether to launch a third.

The Airbus A330 crashed in a storm en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on 1 June, killing all 228 people on board.

Pieces of wreckage which have been recovered indicate that it broke up on contact with water, and not in the air.

Investigators also believe the plane's speed sensors had been "a factor but not the cause" of the crash. There had been speculation that old-style sensors may have given the pilots faulty information. More