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Air France Aircraft Disappears off Radar
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Airboss
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Air France Rio-Paris flight missing with 228 aboard
15 mins ago
PARIS (Reuters) – An Air France plane on its way from Brazil to Paris has gone missing with 228 people on board, the airline said on Monday.
Its last known location was unclear. Brazilian television said the Brazilian air force had started a search mission over the Atlantic Ocean for the plane.
Flight AF 447 has 216 passengers and 12 crew on board. It left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time and was expected in Paris on Monday at 11:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m. EDT).
"Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from flight AF 447, which was flying on the Rio de Janeiro - Paris Charles de Gaulle route and was scheduled to arrive at 11.15 a.m. today (5:15 a.m. EDT)," an Air France spokesman said.
An Air France-KLM spokeswoman in Amsterdam said there had been no radio contact with the missing plane "for a while."
The plane was an Airbus 330-200, according to the Paris airports authority website.
Air France said relatives of people traveling on board flight AF 447 were being taken care of in a special area of Charles de Gaulle airport.
(Reporting by Jean-Baptiste Vey, Gerard Bon, Astrid Wendlandt and Tim Hepher; writing by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Crispian Balmer and Angus MacSwan)
15 mins ago
PARIS (Reuters) – An Air France plane on its way from Brazil to Paris has gone missing with 228 people on board, the airline said on Monday.
Its last known location was unclear. Brazilian television said the Brazilian air force had started a search mission over the Atlantic Ocean for the plane.
Flight AF 447 has 216 passengers and 12 crew on board. It left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time and was expected in Paris on Monday at 11:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m. EDT).
"Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from flight AF 447, which was flying on the Rio de Janeiro - Paris Charles de Gaulle route and was scheduled to arrive at 11.15 a.m. today (5:15 a.m. EDT)," an Air France spokesman said.
An Air France-KLM spokeswoman in Amsterdam said there had been no radio contact with the missing plane "for a while."
The plane was an Airbus 330-200, according to the Paris airports authority website.
Air France said relatives of people traveling on board flight AF 447 were being taken care of in a special area of Charles de Gaulle airport.
(Reporting by Jean-Baptiste Vey, Gerard Bon, Astrid Wendlandt and Tim Hepher; writing by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Crispian Balmer and Angus MacSwan)
JFReservist
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mynameisjim
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amt
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The Airbus 330-200 had been expected to arrive in Paris at 1110 local time (0910 GMT).
Tom Symonds, BBC News transport correspondent
The Airbus A330 airliner is likely to have begun its journey tracking the coast of Brazil northwards before striking out across the Atlantic. A few hundred miles from the shore, radar coverage peters out -- from there on, crews use high frequency radio to report their position.
The Brazilian Air Force says the plane left radar screens near the islands of Fernando de Noronha, 230 miles from the coast. The firmest clue to its fate comes from the data message sent via a satellite network at 0214 GMT reporting electrical and pressurisation problems. This suggests whatever happened, happened before the crew could put out a mayday radio call. It was likely a sudden and catastrophic emergency. Even a double engine failure at cruising altitude would normally give the crew around half an hour's gliding time.
Air France says the plane may have been struck by lightning - the cause of around a dozen major air crashes in the last 50 years - but it rarely results in tragedy. More likely lightning damaged electrical systems, possibly leading indirectly to the plane's ditching.
Although passengers survived a landing on the Hudson River in New York in January -- its rarely successful, especially in the middle of an ocean the size of the Atlantic.
It made its last radio contact at 0133 GMT (2233 Brazilian time) when it was 565km (360m) off Brazil's north-eastern coast, Brazil's air force said.
The crew said they were planning to enter Senegalese airspace at 0220 GMT and that the plane was flying normally at an altitude of 10,670m (35,000ft) and a speed of 840km/h (520mph).
At 0220, when Brazilian air traffic controllers saw the plane had not made its required radio call saying it was crossing into Senegalese airspace, air traffic control in the Senegalese capital was contacted.
At 0530 GMT, Brazil's air force launched a search-and-rescue mission, sending out a coast guard patrol plane and a specialised air force rescue aircraft.
"The plane might have been struck by lightning - it's a possibility," Francois Brousse, head of communications at Air France, told reporters in Paris.
Douglas Ferreira Machado, head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil's Civil Aeronautics Agency, said the search would take "a long time".
"It could be a long, sad story," he told Brazil's Globo news. "The black box will be at the bottom of the sea."
France's minister responsible for transportation, Jean-Louis Borloo, ruled out hijacking as a cause of the plane's loss.
'No information'
An Air France official told AFP that people awaiting the flight would be received in a special area at Charles de Gaulle airport's second terminal.
Tearful relatives and friends were led away by airport staff after they arrived expecting to greet passengers.
About 20 relatives of passengers on board the flight arrived at Rio's international airport on Monday morning seeking information.
Bernardo Souza, who said his brother and sister-in-law were on the flight, complained he had received no details from Air France.
"I had to come to the airport but when I arrived I just found an empty counter," he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
"With a lack of information, it is even more worrying."
Air France has opened a telephone hotline for friends and relatives of people on the plane - 00 33 157021055 for callers outside France and 0800 800812 for inside France.
This is the first major incident in Brazilian air space since a Tam flight crashed in Sao Paulo in July 2007 killing 199 people.
Tom Symonds, BBC News transport correspondent
The Airbus A330 airliner is likely to have begun its journey tracking the coast of Brazil northwards before striking out across the Atlantic. A few hundred miles from the shore, radar coverage peters out -- from there on, crews use high frequency radio to report their position.
The Brazilian Air Force says the plane left radar screens near the islands of Fernando de Noronha, 230 miles from the coast. The firmest clue to its fate comes from the data message sent via a satellite network at 0214 GMT reporting electrical and pressurisation problems. This suggests whatever happened, happened before the crew could put out a mayday radio call. It was likely a sudden and catastrophic emergency. Even a double engine failure at cruising altitude would normally give the crew around half an hour's gliding time.
Air France says the plane may have been struck by lightning - the cause of around a dozen major air crashes in the last 50 years - but it rarely results in tragedy. More likely lightning damaged electrical systems, possibly leading indirectly to the plane's ditching.
Although passengers survived a landing on the Hudson River in New York in January -- its rarely successful, especially in the middle of an ocean the size of the Atlantic.
It made its last radio contact at 0133 GMT (2233 Brazilian time) when it was 565km (360m) off Brazil's north-eastern coast, Brazil's air force said.
The crew said they were planning to enter Senegalese airspace at 0220 GMT and that the plane was flying normally at an altitude of 10,670m (35,000ft) and a speed of 840km/h (520mph).
At 0220, when Brazilian air traffic controllers saw the plane had not made its required radio call saying it was crossing into Senegalese airspace, air traffic control in the Senegalese capital was contacted.
At 0530 GMT, Brazil's air force launched a search-and-rescue mission, sending out a coast guard patrol plane and a specialised air force rescue aircraft.
"The plane might have been struck by lightning - it's a possibility," Francois Brousse, head of communications at Air France, told reporters in Paris.
Douglas Ferreira Machado, head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil's Civil Aeronautics Agency, said the search would take "a long time".
"It could be a long, sad story," he told Brazil's Globo news. "The black box will be at the bottom of the sea."
France's minister responsible for transportation, Jean-Louis Borloo, ruled out hijacking as a cause of the plane's loss.
'No information'
An Air France official told AFP that people awaiting the flight would be received in a special area at Charles de Gaulle airport's second terminal.
Tearful relatives and friends were led away by airport staff after they arrived expecting to greet passengers.
About 20 relatives of passengers on board the flight arrived at Rio's international airport on Monday morning seeking information.
Bernardo Souza, who said his brother and sister-in-law were on the flight, complained he had received no details from Air France.
"I had to come to the airport but when I arrived I just found an empty counter," he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
"With a lack of information, it is even more worrying."
Air France has opened a telephone hotline for friends and relatives of people on the plane - 00 33 157021055 for callers outside France and 0800 800812 for inside France.
This is the first major incident in Brazilian air space since a Tam flight crashed in Sao Paulo in July 2007 killing 199 people.
clr4theapch
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Crossky
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This link is a pretty good IMO Meteorological analysis of the conditions present where AF447 went down at:
Tim Vasquez Weather site
His opinion is the cause of the accident was that the aircraft was subject to severe turbulence. God speed.
Tim Vasquez Weather site
His opinion is the cause of the accident was that the aircraft was subject to severe turbulence. God speed.
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