AIR FRANCE FLIGHT AF447 MISSING AIRBUS A330-200 PLANE CRASH CONFIRMED UPDATES0 comments

We send our condolences to the family members and relatives of this latest tragedy.  Air France has confirmed that the missing plane has crashed.

Air France confirms the plane crash

An Air France plane feared to have crashed in the Atlantic with 228 people aboard reported electrical problems in stormy weather before it lost contact, the airline said Monday, describing the loss as a “catastrophe.”

Officials said the Airbus A330-200 sent automated messages of electrical failure and pressure loss as it hit turbulence, vanishing from the radar early in its flight from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.

Brazil and France have scrambled search and rescue aircraft on both sides of the Atlantic, but with a vast area to scour, there were dwindling hopes of finding survivors.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said most of the passengers are Brazilian, and about 40 are French.

“It doesn’t change anything; they’re all victims,” he told reporters at Charles de Gaulle, where he had arrived to meet with relatives of the missing.

Air France said earlier that 80 Brazilians and 73 French citizens were on the missing flight, CNN affiliate TV Globo reported.

The loss of a relatively new model of one of the aviation sector’s most reliable and state-of-the-art aircraft has stunned analysts who say it would take extremely violent weather to bring down such a large jet.

Former Airbus pilot John Wiley told CNN that speculation lightning had brought down the plane was likely to prove unfounded since most modern passenger aircraft were capable of withstanding direct strikes.

The last known contact with the plane — carrying 126 men, 82 women, seven children and a baby, plus the crew — was at 0133 GMT Monday (8:33 p.m. Sunday ET), according to the Brazilian Air Force.

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.

The Air Force said the jet was last logged flying at an altitude of 10,600 meters (35,000 feet) before contact was lost. When the plane failed to make further contact, Brazilian air controllers contacted their counterparts in Senegal. [CNN]

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