Air France plane missing over the Atlantic

[MarkLawrence]

Breaking news on MSNBC - AF flight from Rio to Paris goes missing

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

CNN has coverage as well - it's an A330 that is missing

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/ ... index.html

[Iberia A340-600]

My first thought was that after all the trouble Air France has been having with their 777-300ER fleet and engine failures, that sadly one of them had unfortunately crashed. I then continued reading and saw that number one the flight originated in GIG, not GRU, and that the aircraft involved was an A330-200.

This would be the first (?) fatal crash of an A330-200 if the verdict is 'catastrophic'. My thoughts go out to the family members waiting to hear and to Air France.

[mmedford]

First Commerical Crash, 2nd airframe crash...Airbus Test Aircraft.

at 8:38am local, no wreckage found yet...

[MarkLawrence]

Latest news is that they say it flew through an area of severe storms and turbulence and then sent an automatic signal that there was an electronic circuit malfunction - probably struck by lightening. Those storms must have been very high up as the plane was 1,500 miles north east of Rio and I am guessing at cruising altitude - probably 35,000+?

[Delta777LR]

let hope nothing severe.

[T-Bird76]

let hope nothing severe.

Serigo.. the plane and its passengers are lost. If the plane successfully ditched the life rafts have GPS emitters that would have been picked up by receivers already. Sadly this is a lost cause.

[Mellyrose]

So sad. I can't even imagine what happened up there. I feel terrible for the families.

F-GZCP was the aircraft: http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.s ... humbnails=

[N101CV]

Godspeed to all and may they always have tailwinds. It does not look good at all for this one. Once they do start finding wreckage this is going to be a real tricky one as well due to the distance off shore as they havew estimated already. Deep water filled with sharks. R.I.P.

[PhilDernerJr]

For storms to be at that altitude, they must have been very severe. But I'm surprised that if weather was the culprit, that they'd even have flown through that to begin with.

Only automated messages from the plane indicate something very sudden. If they have an AFIRS system to receive automated messages, they probably also have coordinates of where the plane was when that message was sent, as well as other information on the plane such as thrust, fuel burn, etc.

Very sad story. My thoughts are with the families.

[MarkLawrence]

I agree with Phil - those storms had to be bad! Why not try to fly around them though. I appreciate that if the storm band was very long, they probably would have had to divert for extra fuel - but - safer....

Of course, I remember back to the Helderberg disaster in SAA's history many years ago - disappeared into the Indian Ocean off Mauritius - culprit there - hazardous cargo - so, what might have been in the cargo hold??

I just pray they knew nothing about it - it's a long fall from 35,000'! Our thoughts and prayers with the families as well.

[Matt Molnar]

I just pray they knew nothing about it - it's a long fall from 35,000'! Our thoughts and prayers with the families as well.

CNN reports that in addition to the alert Air France received about the electrical failure, they received one indicating the fuselage had broken up...though I guess it's possible that was transmitted after impact.

Obviously lots of terribly frightening factors involved here, but perhaps the scariest is that we may never really know what happened since it will be challenging to locate the data and voice recorders.

[Matt Molnar]

CNN reports that in addition to the alert Air France received about the electrical failure, they received one indicating the fuselage had broken up...though I guess it's possible that was transmitted after impact.

Correction, there was no message about a break up, but there may have been an indication that the aircraft lost pressurization.

[LGA777]

Have not had a lot of time to read a lot but here a few things I have read not yet mentioned in this thread.

While many passengers where Brazilian or French they where many different nationalities onboard including 6 Americans. Their would have been 7 Americans but one was traveling with a Brazilian friend, the friend realized at check-in his passport had expired so both delayed their trip.

Some relatives claimed to have recieved text messages from onboard the flight saying "I love You" and "we are very scared."

The aircraft was delivered in April 2005 making it just over 4 years old C/N 660.

This is the response in my employers daily news message and was the lead story.

Air France Flight 447

US Airways and our 33,000 employees are keeping all of those touched by the events of Air France Flight 447 in our thoughts and prayers. The Airbus A330 went missing earlier this morning and has yet to be found. Officials from Air France reported that, prior to disappearing, the aircraft sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems.

Regards

LGA777

[MarkLawrence]

Interesting Ron - thanks!!

Some relatives claimed to have recieved text messages from onboard the flight saying "I love You" and "we are very scared."

Wouldn't this imply some form of cell service or internet service? Does Air France have internet capabilities on their long range flights?

[Matt Molnar]

Wouldn't this imply some form of cell service or internet service? Does Air France have internet capabilities on their long range flights?

Very unlikely that these were sent from over the ocean, as there is no cell service out there. I don't think AF offers internet, but that wouldn't have anything to do with an SMS txt msg anyway. I think it is possible that the plane was still over land and very much under control but some pax felt some bumps and saw storms out the window and sent those messages.