Air France 447 - Air France Jet Disappears on Flight From Brazil to Paris
PARIS — An Air France passenger jet traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared during an electrical storm with heavy turbulence on Sunday evening, and officials said that a search had begun for the wreckage around a small island off the Brazilian coast.
“We have received no news from Flight AF 447,” said an Air France spokeswoman in Paris, Brigitte Barrand.
The plane was carrying 228 people — 216 passengers and 12 crew members. Among the passengers were 126 men, 82 women, seven children and one infant. There were nine cabin crew members and three pilots, the airline said.
One hour after the flight took off at 7 p.m. local time on Sunday, the plane encountered an storm with “very heavy turbulence,” the Air France spokeswoman said. The plane disappeared from radar screens at 8:10 p.m., 10 minutes after the heavy turbulence was reported.
Air France officials said that it was not yet known what caused air traffic control to lose contact with the flight. As the flight’s electrical systems went down, it automatically sent a message informing air traffic control of the system failure, and then nothing was heard, Air France officials said in a press conference in Paris.
All jets are built to withstand severe turbulence, especially at upper flying levels, and Ms. Barrand said that the pilot was very experienced, having clocked 11,000 flying hours, including 1,100 hours on A330 jets.
A Brazilian Air Force spokesman, said that the plane disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean near the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, a 7-square mile island about 186 miles northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal. Search efforts in the area were under way, the spokesman said, according to The Associated Press.
The plane was scheduled to arrive in Paris at 11:10 a.m. local time. It was operated by Air France and apparently did not share a flight code with Delta Air Lines, the American carrier that shares flights and routes with Air France.
“We are very worried,” said an aviation official in Paris interviewed by Agence France-Presse. “It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected.”
The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, expressed his grave concern about the missing airliner and sent his transport and environment ministers to the airport to monitor the situation.
The airline said that people in France seeking information about the flight can telephone 0800 800 812. For those calling from abroad, the number is 33 1 57 02 10 55.
Micheline Maynard contributed reporting from New York.
