Search teams have discovered the tail of Air France Flight 447, two years after the jet once plunged into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, according to the victims’ families.

            Victims’ families were informed of this finding at a meeting with the France air accident Investigation agency (BEA) in Paris.

            Agency head Jean Paul Troadec told the families that the piece of wreckage found should include the black boxes of the aircraft, although he did not confirm whether or not they had been found. Experts say even if the recording devices were recovered, it is unlikely they would function due to their duration of being under water.

            "Pressure and corrosion have likely damaged the wreckage, especially as it has been down there for so long," said David Learmount, of Flight International, "Flight recorders are not designed to withstand pressures of the depths that this aircraft actually went to."

            All 228 passengers and crew on board Air France Flight 447 were killed when the plane disappeared on its way from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to Paris, France, on June 1, 2009. The pilots lost contact with air traffic controllers while flying across an area of the Atlantic Ocean known for its storms and turbulence.       

            What exactly was the cause of the plane crash still remains enigmatic; only small portions of wreckage and a handful of bodies is all that hitherto has been recovered. Perhaps the mystery will never be solved, the black box possibility gives a precarious shimmer of hope, but victims’ families may have to live with the fact that their loved ones’ deaths might be forever unknown.