Paris , France ( CNN ) -- A new operation will begin next year to find the debris of Air France Flight 447 , which mysteriously crashed into the southern Atlantic Ocean last year , French officials said . The search will begin in February and will be the fourth search for debris from the Airbus A330-200 , which crashed while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1 , 2009 . All 228 people on board were killed . Investigators have not yet established what caused the crash , and large parts of the plane -- including both flight recorders -- have never been found , despite an extensive search operation that included a French navy submarine . France 's air accident investigation agency , the BEA , will give details of the searches that will take place in the coming weeks in a meeting with families of the victims , the French Transport Ministry said . The Air France plane went down in stormy weather , and most of the bodies were never recovered . The plane 's flight data recorder remains missing in the ocean , according to Air France . Studies of the debris and bodies that were found led the BEA to conclude the plane hit the water belly first , essentially intact . Oxygen masks were not deployed , indicating that the cabin did not depressurize , the BEA revealed in a report last year . Automated messages sent from the plane in the minutes before the crash showed there were problems measuring air speed , the investigators said , though they said that alone was not enough to cause the disaster . The area where the plane went down is far out in the Atlantic -- two to four days for ships to reach from the nearest ports in Brazil or Senegal in west Africa . The underwater terrain is rough with underwater mountains and valleys , the BEA said .
The flight crashed November 1 , 1980 in the Atlantic Ocean . All 14 people aboard were killed . Investigators still do n't know what caused the crash .