Universal Ramblings

UPDATES:

• Unidentified wreckage found in Atlantic hunt for Air France plane that vanished with 228 aboard, Brazil officials say.
• Brazil and France said they would be suspending their search for the missing Air France plane, AF 447, which was carrying 228 people on board and is presumed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, due to poor visibility and would resume on Tuesday.
• Brazil’s second largest airline Tam SA said crew members of one of its flight saw flashes of light over the Atlantic Ocean near where Air France is believed to have plunged to its doom.
• The airline company identified the nationalities of the victims as two Americans, an Argentinean, an Austrian, a Belgian, 58 Brazilians, five British, a Canadian, nine Chinese, a Croatian, a Dane, a Dutch, an Estonian, a Filipino, 61 French, a Gambian, 26 Germans, four Hungarians, three Irish, one Icelandic, nine Italians, five Lebanese, two Moroccans, three Norwegians, two Polish, one Romanian, one Russian, three Slovakian, two Spanish, one Swedish, six Swiss and one Turk.
• The Air France plane that disappeared between Brazil and France with 228 people on board today has almost certainly crashed with no survivors, airline and government officials said.
• French President Nicolas Sarkozy said most of the passengers are Brazilian, and about 40 are French.
• A visibly shaken chief executive officer of Air France has told a press conference at Charles de Gaulle airport the company and nation are in mourning.Pierre-Henri Gourgeon said Air France flight AF447 had reported “the failure of several onboard computer systems” after flying through an area of “extreme turbulence” prior to air traffic controllers loosing contact with it.
• “We can fear the worst,” said French Transportation Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, adding there was “real pessimism at this hour,”
• Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he fears British citizens may be on board the aircraft.
• Air France suggests the electrical fault was probably caused by the plane suffering a lightning strike.
  
• 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.
  Air France emergency line number: (outside France) +33 1 57 02 10 55; (in France) 0800 800 812.
  
• The Missing Air France jet had electrical problems in stormy weather.
• A total of 228 people are feared dead
• The Airbus A330-200 sent automatic messages signaling equipment failure as it hit turbulence early in its 11-hour flight

Air France said Monday that it had lost radar contact with an Airbus A330 passenger plane traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Officials said that search efforts were underway around a small island off the Brazilian coast.

The plane was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members. Among the passengers were 126 men, 82 women, 7 children and one infant, and the staff included 9 cabin crew members and 3 pilots, Air France said.

One hour after the flight took off at 7 p.m. local time on Sunday, the plane encountered “very heavy turbulence,” the Air France spokeswoman said. The plane disappeared from radar screens at 8:10 a.m. local time, 10 minutes after the heavy turbulence was reported. However, she said it was not known at this time if the turbulence contributed to the disappearance.

Ms. Barrand said that the pilot was very experienced, having clocked up 11,000 flying hours including 1,100 hours on A330 jets.

Brazil’s air force is searching the Atlantic Ocean for an Air France jet with 228 people on board that has gone missing.

The airline said the plane had sent a message at 2.14am GMT reporting an electrical short-circuit, after it had flown through a stormy area with strong turbulence.

Flight AF 447 was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris when all contact was lost.

The aircraft would have run out of fuel by now, Jean-Louis Borloo, the second most senior figure in France’s cabinet, said.

“By now it would be beyond its kerosene reserves so unfortunately we must now envisage the most tragic scenario,” he said.

Senior French minister Jean-Louis Borloo ruled out the possibility of a hijacking of the flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

Henry Wilson, a Brazilian air force spokesman, said planes had taken off from the island of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil’s northeast coast to look for the Air France jet.

Jean-Christophe Ruffin, France’s ambassador in the West African country of Senegal, told French iTele that aircraft had also taken off from there to search for the missing Airbus.

The plane was an Airbus 330-200 EAD.PA, according to the Paris airports authority website.

Pilots stay in contact with traffic control across the Atlantic by radioing in their position every 20 to 30 minutes. There is no radar cover because radar can only ’see’ along a direct line of sight.

“Anything that’s the other side of the horizon cannot be seen by radar, so once you’ve gone 200 or 300 miles off the coast, radar cannot see you any longer,” said David Learmount of Flight International.

A special room has been set up at the airport for the relatives and friends at the airport awaiting word on the fate of their loved ones.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has asked authorities “to do everything possible to trace the plane and determine the circumstances of its disappearance.”

Brazil says it has launched two air force squadrons to hunt near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha in the Atlantic Ocean, 365 kilometers (226 miles) from its coast, although the plane vanished outside the country’s radar coverage.

About the Plane Airbus 330:

The Airbus 330 is a twin-engine long-range aircraft introduced into commercial aviation in the 1990s.

Transport analyst Kieran Daly told CNN that the lack of communication with the aircraft “does suggest it was something serious and catastrophic.”

He said the aircraft involved is believed to be one delivered to Air France in April 2005. Video Watch aviation expert describe possible scenarios »

“It is an extremely young fleet by aviation standards,” he said. “The A330 is state of the art with extremely reliable engines made by General Electric.”

CNN air travel expert Richard Quest says the plane, a stalwart of trans-Atlantic routes, has an impeccable safety record.

“It has very good range, and is extremely popular with airlines because of its versatility,” he said.

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