Comoros plane black box not located, says France

PARIS (Reuters) - Investigators have not yet located the flight recorder of the Airbus A310-300 that crashed into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday, France's defense ministry said on Wednesday.

A French minister, Alain Joyandet, who is in the Comoros, said earlier in the day that a search plane had located the black box. Yemenia airlines also said it had been detected.

But the defense ministry said there had been confusion over the signals heard by a French search plane.

"The Transall picked up a signal from the Airbus' distress beacon and not the black box," the spokesman said.

France has sent investigators and military planes to hunt for survivors from the crashed jet which was carrying 66 French people among the 153 passengers.

(Reporting by Gerard Bon; Writing by Anna Willard; Editing by Richard Balmforth)