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$24,500 For Families of Air France Victims, But Still No Black Box

With just over a week left to retrieve the black box of Air France Flight 447 before it gives up the ghost, search teams and airline authorities are beginning to wind down and instead turn their focus onto the families of the victims.

Although they've recovered approximately fifty bodies of the 228 on board and whole sections of the aircraft's galley, CNN reports that the "head of the French accident investigation board, Paul-Louis Arslanian, said this week that there is a chance the entire aircraft may never be found." Aircraft wreckage or not, Air France will begin compensating the families of the deceased, to the tune of $24,500 per victim regardless of class flown.

In addition to the money, Air France has sent counselors to the aid of some 1,800 relatives of the victims, who were of 32 different nationalities. The Wikipedia page on the tragedy has a graph of these nationalities and how many were on board, showing some from Gabon, Estonia and Lebanon even. This next week should bring the conclusion of major searches, but we're far from having questions answered.

Related Stories:
· Air France pays $24,500 to crash victims' families [CNN]
· Air France Black Box Search Borrows The Titanic's Sub [Jaunted]
· Flight 447 Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: AP]