'Emotion and worry' as plane goes missing - Big Big Forums

sunflowers · 06-01-2009, 08:05 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31040692

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Air France has lost contact with a plane carrying 228 people from Brazil to Paris, an official said Monday.

"Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from Air France flight 447 flying from Rio to Paris, spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand said.

She said the flight was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members.

Brazil's air force said a search began Monday morning near the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha.

The plane disappeared about 186 miles (300 kilometers) northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal and near Fernando de Noronha, the spokesman said.

He spoke on condition of anonymity, in keeping with Air Force policy.

Barrand said "Air France shares the emotion and worry of the families concerned."

She said the airline has installed an information center at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport for the families of those aboard.

The flight was scheduled to arrive in Paris at 0915 GMT (5:15 a.m. EDT), according to the airport.

dv8grl · 06-01-2009, 08:21 AM

Crazy!
I wish there was more information., like the last time the plane had contact with air traffic control., etc...

dv8grl · 06-01-2009, 08:36 AM

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aJ9CsvOH4RYE

An Air France plane flying from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris went missing, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said. There were 228 people on board, Air France-KLM said.

The president is “deeply concerned” and ordered Energy Minister Jean-Louis Borloo and Transport Minister Dominique Bussereau to the airport to monitor the situation. Air France said it had set aside an area for families at the airport.

The Airbus A330 had been out of radio contact “for some time,” KLM spokeswoman Marisca Kensenhuis said in a telephone interview. The plane disappeared from radar screens off the Brazilian city of Natal on the Atlantic coast, the Associated Press said.

Flight 447 was due to land in Paris today 11:10 a.m. local time, Agence France-Presse said.

The A330, a twin-engine plane that carries about 250 people, has never suffered a fatal crash in commercial flight, though a development model crashed shortly after takeoff during testing, according to Paul Hayes, director of safety at Ascend, an aviation consultant in the U.K.

Hayes said it would be highly unusual for an aircraft to go down in the flight phase, either in climbing to its flight path, or in an en-route altitude. Most accidents occur during takeoff or landing, he said.

“Most frequently accidents occur on approaching to landing,” he said in a telephone interview. “The next most frequent is on takeoff. Generally, during climb, and beyond, en route, you have very few accidents. With no information, we can’t even speculate about it.”

dv8grl · 06-01-2009, 08:57 AM

Missing jet reported short-circuit after turbulence
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090601/...lzc2luZ2pldHJl
PARIS (Reuters) – Air France said on Monday a plane that went missing on the way from Brazil to Paris had sent a message at 0214 GMT reporting an electrical short-circuit, after it had flown through a stormy area with strong turbulence.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090601/...a/brazil_plane
An official with France's transport agency said contact with the plane was lost at 0220 GMT Monday (10:20 p.m. EDT Sunday). The official was not authorized to be named according to agency policy.

A police official on Fernando de Noronha said the weather was clear in the area of the archipelago last night into this morning.

"It's going to take a long time to carry out this search," Douglas Ferreira Machado, head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil's Civil Aeronautics Agency, or ANAC, told Globo. "It could be a long, sad story. The black box will be at the bottom of the sea."

Aviation experts said it was clear the plane was not in the air any longer, due to the amount of fuel it would have been carrying.

"It's nearly three hours overdue. There has been no receipt of a mayday call. The conclusion to be drawn is that something catastrophic happened on board that has caused this airplane to ditch in a controlled or an uncontrolled fashion," Jane's Aviation analyst Chris Yates told The Associated Press.

"I would suggest that potentially it went down very quickly and so quickly that the pilots on board didn't have a chance to make that emergency call," Yates said, adding that the possibilities ranged from mechanical failure to terrorism.

Barrand said the airline set up an information center at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport for the families of those aboard. That center said 60 French citizens were on the plane.

"Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from Air France flight 447 flying from Rio to Paris," she said. "Air France shares the emotion and worry of the families concerned."

The flight was scheduled to arrive in Paris at 0915 GMT (5:15 a.m. EDT), according to the airport.

France's minister in charge of transport, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there was a "real pessimism at this hour" about the fate of the aircraft.

"We can fear the worst," he said on Europe-1 radio.

sunflowers · 06-01-2009, 11:50 AM

Air France: Missing jet possibly hit by lightning

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31040692/?GT1=43001

SHELBYDOG · 06-01-2009, 01:45 PM

Missing French jet hit thunderstorms over Atlantic

Quote:

By ALAN CLENDENNING and GREG KELLER, Associated Press Writer Alan Clendenning And Greg Keller, Associated Press Writer – 25 mins ago
SAO PAULO – A missing Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into a tower of thunderstorms and heavy turbulence over the Atlantic Ocean, officials said Monday, fearing that all aboard were lost.

The area where the plane could have gone down was vast. Brazil's military searched for the plane off its northeast coast, while the French military scoured the Atlantic off the West African coast near the Cape Verde Islands.

Chief Air France spokesman Francois Brousse said "it is possible" the plane was hit by lightning, but aviation experts expressed doubt that a bolt of lightning was enough to bring the plane down.

Air France Flight 447, a 4-year-old Airbus A330, left Rio on Sunday at 7:30 p.m. local time (2230 GMT, 6:30 p.m. EDT) with 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board, said company spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand.

The plane left Brazil radar contact, past the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, about three hours later (10:48 Brazil time, 0148 GMT, 9:48 p.m. EDT), indicating it was flying normally at 35,000 feet (10,670 meters) and traveling at 522 mph (840 kph).

About a half-hour after that, the plane sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems while going through strong turbulence, Air France said.

The plane "crossed through a thunderous zone with strong turbulence" at 0200 GMT Monday (10 p.m. EDT Sunday) and an automatic message was received fourteen minutes later reporting electrical failure and a loss of cabin pressure.

That was the last communication sent from the plane, when it was about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of the Cape Verde Islands, according to the Brazilian Air Force.

Meteorologists said tropical storms are much more violent than thunderstorms in the United States and elsewhere.

"Tropical thunderstorms ... can tower up to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters). At the altitude it was flying, it's possible that the Air France plane flew directly into the most charged part of the storm — the top," Henry Margusity, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com, said in a statement.

Brazil's air force was searching near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, about 180 miles (300 kilometers) northeast of the Brazilian coastal city of Natal. The region is about 1,500 miles northeast of Rio.

Portuguese air control authorities say the missing plane did not make contact with controllers in Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores Islands nor, as far as they know, with other Atlantic air traffic controllers in Cape Verde, Casablanca, or the Canary islands.

In Washington, a Pentagon official said he'd seen no indication that terrorism or foul play was involved. He spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject.

Sobbing relatives of people aboard the plane arrived at an airport in Sao Paulo to fly onto Rio de Janeiro, where Air France was assisting relatives. Andres Fernandes, his eyes tearing up, said a relative "was supposed to be on the flight, but we need to confirm it," Globo TV reported.

At the Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris, family members who had arrived to meet passengers refused to speak to reporters and were brought to a cordoned-off crisis center.

Air France said it expressed "its sincere condolences to the families and loved ones of the passengers and crew members" aboard Flight 447. The airline did not explicitly say there were no survivors, but no sign of the plane had turned up more than 12 hours after it disappeared.

Air France-KLM CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, at a news conference, said the plane's pilot had 11,000 hours of flying experience, including 1,700 hours flying this aircraft.

"We are without doubt facing an air catastrophe," Gourgeon said.

Aviation experts said the risk the plane was brought down by lightning was slim.

"Lightning issues have been considered since the beginning of aviation. They were far more prevalent when aircraft operated at low altitudes. They are less common now since it's easier to avoid thunderstorms," said Bill Voss, president and CEO of Flight Safety Foundation, Alexandria, Va.

He said planes have specific measures built in to help dissipate electricity along the aircraft's skin, and are tested for resistance to big electromagnetic shocks and equipped to resist them. He said the plane should be found soon, because it has backup locators that should continue to function even in deep water.

Experts said the absence of a mayday call meant something happened very quickly.

"The conclusion to be drawn is that something catastrophic happened on board that has caused this airplane to ditch in a controlled or an uncontrolled fashion," Jane's Aviation analyst Chris Yates told The Associated Press. "Potentially it went down very quickly and so quickly that the pilot on board didn't have a chance to make that emergency call."

Air France crisis center said 60 French citizens were on the plane. Italy said at least three passengers were Italian.

If all 228 people were killed, it would be the deadliest commercial airline disaster since Nov. 12, 2001, when an American Airlines jetliner crashed in the New York City borough of Queens during a flight to the Dominican Republic, killing 265 people. On Feb. 19, 2003, 275 people were killed in the crash of an Iranian military plane carrying members of the Revolutionary Guards as it prepared to land at Kerman airport in Iran.

The worst single-plane disaster was in 1985 when a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 crashed into a mountainside after losing part of its tail fin, killing 520 people.

Airbus would not further comment until more details emerged.

"Our thoughts are with the passengers and with the families of the passengers," said Airbus spokeswoman Maggie Bergsma.

She said it was the first fatal accident of a A330-200 since a test flight in 1994 went wrong, killing seven people in Toulouse.

The Airbus A330-200 is a twin-engine, long-haul, medium-capacity passenger jet that is 190 feet (58.8 meters) long. It is a shortened version of the standard A330, and can hold up to 253 passengers. There are 341 in use worldwide today. It can fly up to 7,760 miles (12,500 kilometers).

Rick Kennedy, a spokesman for GE Aviation, expressed doubt that the engine was at fault. He said the CF6-80E engine that powered the Air France plane "is the most popular and reliable engine that we have for big airplanes in the world." He said there are more than 15,000 airplanes flying in the world with that engine design.

__

Keller reported from Charles de Gaulle airport in Roissy, France. Associated Press reporters Emma Vandore, Laurent Lemel and Laurent Pirot in Paris and Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Belgium, Barry Hatton in Lisbon and Airlines and Transportation Editor Greg Stec in New York contributed to this report.

sunflowers · 06-01-2009, 02:15 PM

All 228 Aboard Missing Jet Feared Lost
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31040692/?GT1=43001

sunflowers · 06-02-2009, 11:12 AM

Debris seen on Air France route; no signs of life
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31057560

RIO DE JANEIRO - An airplane seat cushion, a life jacket, metallic debris and signs of fuel were found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday by Brazilian airplanes searching for a missing Air France airliner.

The debris was spotted from the air by Brazilian military pilots searching 410 miles north of the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, roughly along the path that the jet was taking before it disappeared with 228 people on board, said Air Force spokesman Jorge Amaral.

There were no signs of life in two sightings of separate debris areas about 35 miles apart.

"The locations where the objects were found are towards the right of the point where the last signal of the plane was emitted," Amaral said. "That suggests that it might have tried to make a turn, maybe to return to Fernando de Noronha, but that is just a hypothesis."

Amaral said authorities would not be able to confirm that the debris is from the plane until they can retrieve some of it from the ocean for identification. Brazilian military ships are not expected to arrive at the area until Wednesday.

The discovery came more than 24 hours after the jet bound from Rio to Paris went missing, with all feared dead.

Rescuers were still scanning a vast sweep of ocean extending from far off northeastern Brazil to waters off West Africa. The 4-year-old Airbus A330 was last heard from at 10:14 p.m. EDT Sunday.

Investigators on both sides of the ocean were trying to determine what brought it down. Potential causes included shifting winds and hail from towering thunderheads, lightning or a combination of other factors.

'Very long investigation' ahead
Even if the debris is confirmed to be of the Air France flight, the rescuers' work will be arduous.

Jenefer3 · 06-05-2009, 10:13 AM

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (CNN) -- The Brazilian air force said that debris picked up Thursday near where officials believe Air France Flight 447 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean was not from the plane.

Friends and relatives of the 228 people aboard Air France Flight 447 attend a memorial service Thursday in Brazil.

"It has been verified that the material did not belong to the plane," Brig. Ramon Borges Cardoso told reporters in Recife, Brazil, about the material recovered Thursday. "It is a pallet of wood that is utilized for transport. It is used in planes, but on this flight to Paris, there was no wooden pallet."

He added that oil slicks seen on the ocean were not from the plane either and that the quantity of oil exceeded the amount the plane would have carried.

"No material from the airplane was picked up," he said.

The announcement left open the question of whether other debris that had not yet been plucked from the ocean might be from the plane.

On Wednesday, searchers recovered two debris fields and had identified the wreckage, including an airplane seat and an orange float as coming from Flight 447. Officials now say that none of the debris recovered comes from the missing plane. Watch as experts question whether recovery is possible »

Helicopters had been lifting pieces from the water and dropping them on three naval vessels.

Officials said searchers had found objects in a circular 5-kilometer (3-mile) area, including one object with a diameter of 7 meters (23 feet) and 10 other objects, some of which were metallic, Brazilian air force spokesman Jorge Amaral said.

The debris was found about 650 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha Islands, an archipelago 355 kilometers (220 miles) off the northeast coast of Brazil. Map of Flight 447's flight path »

Earlier Thursday, a public interfaith service was held for the 228 victims at a Catholic church in Rio de Janeiro.

"Whoever has faith, whoever believes in God, believes in the eternity of the soul," said Mauro Chavez, whose friend lost a daughter on the flight. "This means everything."

Investigators have not determined what caused the plane to crash Monday. The flight data recorders have not been recovered, and the plane's crew did not send any messages indicating problems before the plane disappeared.

The aircraft's computer system, however, relayed about four minutes of automated messages indicating a loss of cabin pressure and an electrical failure, officials have said.

Investigators said the plane flew through lightning and turbulence, but they don't know what role, if any, the weather might have played in the disaster.

A report in France suggested the pilots may have been flying at the "wrong speed" for the violent thunderstorm they encountered early Monday before the Airbus A330's systems failed.

Le Monde newspaper reported that Airbus was sending a warning to operators of A330 jets with new advice on flying in storms. No one at Air France immediately responded to a call from CNN.

Foul play has not been ruled out.

A Spanish pilot reported seeing an "intense flash" in the locale where Flight 447 went down Monday, the Spanish carrier Air Comet told CNN on Thursday, confirming a report in the Spanish daily El Mundo.

The co-pilot and a passenger on the flight between Lima, Peru, and Lisbon, Portugal, also said they saw a light.

"Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds," the unidentified captain wrote to his airline.

Air Comet said a written copy of the pilot's report has been sent to Air France, Airbus and the Spanish civil aviation authority.

The Airbus A330 went down about three hours after beginning what was to have been an 11-hour flight. No survivors have been found.

Most of the people on Flight 447 came from Brazil, France and Germany. The remaining victims were from 29 other countries, including three passengers from the United States.

ElleGee · 06-05-2009, 03:44 PM

So do they know where the plane is or not? I'm a bit confusticated....

Jolie Rouge · 06-05-2009, 03:57 PM

There were two Americans on the flight; both from Lafayette LA a geologist Michael Harris, who worked in Rio de Janeiro, and his wife, Anne Harris, 54