Air France Flight 447 vanished after about four hours in the air on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. The plane sent an automated message to Air France “signaling electrical circuit malfunction,’’ according to the company.
The wide-body Airbus A330-200 was carrying 228 people. Officials have said they have”no hope” for finding the lost plane.
As the Brazilian air force continues its search and rescue operation in the waters near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, families of the passengers have gathered at a crisis area in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport awaiting news.
The company said the plane had likely been struck by lightning.
An Airbus source described the failure as “catastrophic” suggesting perhaps a sudden systems failure.
UPDATE: Air France Flight 447 has crashed in the Atlantic.
UPDATE 2: The BEA has released its report on the crash.
Here is the official statement from the airline:
Air France regrets to confirm the disappearance of flight AF 447 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, scheduled to arrive at 11:10am local time today, as announced to the press by Air France CEO, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon.
The Airbus A330-200, registration F-GZCP, left Rio on 31 May at 7:03pm local time (12:03am in Paris).
The aircraft hit a zone of stormy weather with strong turbulence at 2am this morning (universal time), i.e. 4am in Paris. An automatic message was received from the aircraft at 2:14am (4 :14am in Paris) indicating a failure in the electric circuit a long way from the coast.
The Brazilian, African, Spanish and French air traffic control centres all tried to make contact with flight AF 447 but to no avail. The French military air traffic control centre tried to detect the aircraft but did not succeed.
216 passengers were on board: 126 men, 82 women, 7 children and one infant.
There were 12 flight crew members: 3 pilots and 9 flight attendants.
The flight captain had a record of 11,000 flight hours and had already flown 1,700 hours on Airbus A330/A340s.
Of the two first officers, one had flown 3,000 flight hours (800 of which on the Airbus A330/A340) and the other 6,600 (2,600 on the Airbus A330/A340).
The aircraft was powered by General Electric CF6-80E engines.
The aircraft had totalled 18,870 flight hours and went into service on 18 April 2005.
Its last maintenance check in the hangar took place on 16 April 2009.
Air France fully shares the anxiety and distress of the families concerned. The families are being taken care of in a specially reserved area of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2.
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