When salvage workers cut their way through the hulls, they discovered that every Ildiran aboard was dead.

He gazed around at the scruffy men who looked like down-on-their-luck salvage workers.

The suspended rescue effort also delayed plans by marine salvage workers to begin extracting the ship's half-million gallons of fuel and other potential pollutants.

The salvage workers' failure to find the blast site despite having recovered 70 percent of the plane's wreckage has kept alive the malfunction theory.

A construction machine meant for salvage workers.

But if the insurers decide on overhauling it, then the salvage workers will have to right the ship and refloat it.

Mr. Eickman, the fire commission president, said Mr. Zimmerman had warned the salvage worker to stay outside the bin.

In the last three weeks, the number of sonar "hits" has risen and fallen as salvage workers have conducted final scans of a 4.6-mile-by-5-mile area of the crash site.

One of the salvage workers also reported hearing ghostly noises.

He and other senior officials said they still hoped to find additional forensic evidence as salvage workers continue to retrieve more wreckage from the Atlantic.