Underwater search teams have located pieces of an Air France plane that crashed mysteriously in the Atlantic in 2009, French investigators have confirmed.

The discovery gives new hope to uncover the cause of the plane's disappearance, as previous extensive and expensive search efforts proved futile.

All 228 people aboard Flight 447, en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, were killed when the plane slammed into the ocean during an intense high-altitude thunderstorm.

The French air accident investigation agency BEA said in a statement that a team aboard the expedition ship Alucia "has located pieces of an aircraft ... in the last 24 hours."

BEA says its investigators identified the pieces as parts of Flight 447, and that further details will come later.

It did not identify what parts of the plane were located, or where.

Searchers are carrying out a fourth effort to find remains of the plane - and the missing black box flight recorders.

Last month, a French judge filed preliminary manslaughter charges against Air France and the plane's manufacturer, Airbus.

Experts say that without the flight data and voice recorders authorities are unlikely to determine what was at fault.

Air France and Airbus are financing the estimated £7.7m cost of the new search - about £17m has already been spent on the three previous searches for the jet's wreckage.

The team involved in this weekend's discovery was led by the US-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

:: The search is being targeted in area of about 3,900 square mile, several hundred miles off Brazil's north eastern coast, and could last until July.

I don't see how anyone can bring up criminal charges against anyone at this point.  All of the data is inconclusive as to a cause.

Heard on the radio that they've found large parts of the plane and the remains of passengers (heaven only knows what state, I'm guessing skeletal). Hopefully they'll have the black boxes shortly and some answers as to what caused this terrible disaster will be forthcoming.