Paris ( CNN ) -- Nearly two years after an Air France plane mysteriously fell out of the sky , killing 228 people , the bulk of the wreckage has been found with bodies still aboard , French officials said Monday . The human remains will be brought to the surface and identified , French Ecology and Transportation Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said at a news conference . Submarines searching for the wreck spotted two engines , the fuselage and landing gear over the weekend , officials said . But the flight data recorders have not been recovered , leaving investigators as puzzled as ever about why the plane crashed in stormy weather on June 1 , 2009 . `` It 's still a jigsaw puzzle , '' said Alain Bouillard , who will be in charge of the recovery operation . `` We do not know where the recorders might be . '' Kosciusko-Morizet said she was hopeful the flight data recorder , sometimes called the black box , would be found . `` The fact that we found various pieces , a lot of pieces of the plane in a quite concentrated area is a good hope for finding the black boxes , but we have no assurance , '' she said . It is impossible to tell how many bodies remain in the wreck , he added . Fifty bodies were recovered in previous searches , leaving 178 victims still missing . He would not comment on the condition of the bodies , calling it `` inappropriate '' to discuss . The debris is dispersed over `` quite a compact area '' of about 600 meters by 200 meters ( 1,960 feet by about 650 feet ) , he said . All the wreckage will be brought to the surface and sent to France for study , said Jean-Paul Troadec , head of the French air accident investigation agency , the Bureau d'Enquêtes et d'Analyses , or BEA . `` We want to know what happened in this accident , most particularly so it never happens again , '' he said . Three companies bidding to raise the wreck have until Thursday afternoon to submit proposals , he said . The operation should take three weeks to a month , and will be paid for by the French government at an estimated cost of 5 million euros ( $ 7.1 million ) , he said . Authorities are not revealing the exact location of the wreck to protect the site , officials said . The head of Air France said the discovery was `` good news indeed since it gives hope that information on the causes of the accident , so far unresolved , will be found . '' Air France 's Pierre-Henri Gourgeon added his thanks to the French authorities `` who employed hitherto unheard of means to pursue searches . '' Investigators announced Sunday that they had found pieces of the Airbus A330-200 that disappeared while flying to Paris from Rio de Janeiro . After three unsuccessful searches , investigators discovered the wreckage by using `` a different calculation based on currents of the sea and what might have happened , '' Troadec , the BEA chief , said Monday . The BEA said Sunday that a team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution discovered parts during an underwater search operation conducted within the previous 24 hours . Studies of the debris and bodies found after the crash 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 agency said in a 2009 report . Automated messages sent from the plane in the minutes before the crash showed there were problems measuring air speed , investigators have 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 has said .
NEW : Submarines spot engines , the fuselage and landing gear . Comment: The bodies will be brought to the surface and identified , a French official says . The plane went down while flying from Brazil to France in 2009 .