An Air France plane with 228 people on board was presumed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on Monday after hitting heavy turbulence during a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
The airline offered its condolences to the families of the passengers, making clear it did not expect to find survivors.
At least 60 of those on board were French, roughly 60 were Brazilians and two were Slovaks, their countries said.
Air France said the Airbus flew into stormy weather four hours after take-off from Brazil and soon afterwards sent an automatic message reporting electrical faults.
A company spokesman said several of the plane's mechanisms had malfunctioned.
"It is probably a combination of circumstances that could have led to the crash," he said, adding that the airliner might have been hit by lightning.
Aviation experts said lightning strikes on planes were common and were not enough alone to explain a disaster.
The Brazilian air force said the plane was far out over the sea when it went missing.
Military planes took off from the island of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil's northeast coast to look for it and the Brazilian navy sent three ships to help in the search.
France sent one of its air force planes from west Africa.
Flight AF 447 left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. (4:00 p.m. EDT) and had been expected to land at Paris's Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport on Monday at 11:15 a.m.
STORM PATCH
On its flight northeast from Rio, the jetliner would have had to pass through a notorious storm patch shifting around the equator known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone.
"It is a zone in the tropics where you can have particularly deep thunder clouds," said Barry Gromett, a meteorologist at the London Weather Center.
The carrier said 216 passengers were on board, including seven children and one baby, as well as 12 crew members
The airline offered its condolences to the families of the passengers, making clear it did not expect to find survivors.
At least 60 of those on board were French, roughly 60 were Brazilians and two were Slovaks, their countries said.
Air France said the Airbus flew into stormy weather four hours after take-off from Brazil and soon afterwards sent an automatic message reporting electrical faults.
A company spokesman said several of the plane's mechanisms had malfunctioned.
"It is probably a combination of circumstances that could have led to the crash," he said, adding that the airliner might have been hit by lightning.
Aviation experts said lightning strikes on planes were common and were not enough alone to explain a disaster.
The Brazilian air force said the plane was far out over the sea when it went missing.
Military planes took off from the island of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil's northeast coast to look for it and the Brazilian navy sent three ships to help in the search.
France sent one of its air force planes from west Africa.
Flight AF 447 left Rio de Janeiro on Sunday at 7 p.m. (4:00 p.m. EDT) and had been expected to land at Paris's Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport on Monday at 11:15 a.m.
STORM PATCH
On its flight northeast from Rio, the jetliner would have had to pass through a notorious storm patch shifting around the equator known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone.
"It is a zone in the tropics where you can have particularly deep thunder clouds," said Barry Gromett, a meteorologist at the London Weather Center.
The carrier said 216 passengers were on board, including seven children and one baby, as well as 12 crew members
source : Reuters.com
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