A French nuclear-powered submarine will start searching on Wednesday for the flight data and cabin voice recorders of an Air France plane that crashed into

the Atlantic Ocean last week, the military said.

The submarine Emeraude will search for the recorders, more commonly known as the plane's black boxes, in the morning in an initial search zone of 36 kilometers by 36, Christophe Prazuck, a spokesman for the military said.

It will then move to other areas in the following days. No deadline has been set for the search yet.

This is the first time the French military uses a nuclear-powered submarine to search for the debris of a crashed plane. Emeraude will use its sonar equipment to locate the black boxes that are believed to have sunken to the ocean floor.

Another French navy battleship will also set off to the crash site on Wednesday afternoon to join Emeraude in the hunt.

The Airbus A330 with 228 people on board vanished over the Atlantic Ocean last Monday on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The Brazilian navy research team has found 41 bodies so far.

(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2009)