Fifteen more bodies were recovered Sunday in the Atlantic Ocean near the spot where an Air France jet is believed to have crashed a week ago, bringing the total number of bodies found to 17, according to Brazilian military officials.

Early in the day, Brazil's navy announced it had recovered three bodies off the northeast coast of Brazil. Later, a spokesman for France's armed forces said a helicopter operating from a French frigate in the area found another body, along with objects that resemble aircraft debris nearby.

Authorities said pilots searching the mid-Atlantic also spotted additional bodies from the air and sent ships to recover them, Brazilian navy Capt. Giucemar Tabosa Cardoso said.

Brazilian air force Col. Henry Munhoz said Sunday night four of the bodies were male and four were female. He did not immediately provide the gender of the other bodies.

Several structural parts of the aircraft were also recovered at the location, he said.

Air France Flight 447 was carrying 228 people when it crashed May 31.

After a week of searching for wreckage, Brazilian navy aircraft retrieved the first two bodies, both male, on Saturday. Crews also found a suitcase containing a plane ticket and laptop backpack with a name tag.

The personal effects were discovered about 70 kilometres south of where the flight emitted its last signals, roughly 640 kilometres northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.

The Airbus A-330 disappeared in turbulent weather on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Brad Clemes, 49, of Guelph, Ont., was among the passengers.

The U.S. navy is sending two high-tech devices to French ships that will help them locate the plane's flight recorders, a senior U.S. defence official said Saturday.

Investigators hope those recorders will give them more information about inconsistencies in airspeed readings emitted from onboard computers during the final minutes of the flight.

French investigators say the pilots may have been incorrectly adjusting the plane's speed based on wrong information given by sensors known as pitot tubes, mounted outside the aircraft.

There is speculation that ice may have been blocking the tubes as the aircraft flew through a thunderstorm.

The French agency investigating the crash, BEA, said Saturday that the airspeed instruments had not been replaced on the doomed plane, despite recommendations to do so by manufacturer Airbus.

With files from The Associated Press