Just in on Sky news.
An Air France Airbus out of Rio en route to Paris has gone down. Searches underway but Air France holds little hope. 200 plus onboard. :(
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Just in on Sky news.
An Air France Airbus out of Rio en route to Paris has gone down. Searches underway but Air France holds little hope. 200 plus onboard. :(
An Air France plane carrying at least 228 people from Brazil to France has gone missing over the Atlantic.
Paris Charles de Gaulle airport says contact was lost with the flight from Rio de Janeiro early in the morning.
Brazil's air force confirmed the plane was missing and said a search and rescue mission was under way near the island of Fernando de Noronha.
An airport official told AFP the Airbus 330-200 had been expected to arrive in Paris at 1110 local time (0910 GMT).
Another official said it was possible that the plane had a transponder problem but this was very rare.
"We are very worried," he said, quoted by AFP news agency.
Flight AF 447 left Rio at 1900 local time (2200 GMT) on Sunday. It had 216 passengers and 12 crew on board, including three pilots.
An Air France spokeswoman said there had been no radio contact with the plane "for a while".
It is reported to have disappeared 300km (186 miles) north-east of the Brazilian city of Natal.
Source: BBC News
I hate these reports. It's my biggest fear to get stuck in a huge metal coffin as it falls out the sky.
Poor bastards.
suppose we will now get all kinds of shit as to why the plane went down,
That,s how they make / sell news
Lets wait for the Blackbox etc
Air France jet disappears from radar, 'out of fuel'
Posted 1 hour 29 minutes ago
Updated 6 minutes ago
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/06/10.jpg Air traffic control lost contact with the plane not long after it took off. (file photo) (Reuters)
Airport officials in Paris say an Air France passenger plane is missing off the coast of Brazil, and a senior French minister says it would have run out of fuel by now.
Air traffic control lost contact with the plane a few hours ago, not long after it took off from Rio de Janeiro on a flight to Paris with 228 people on board.
"By now it would be beyond its kerosene reserves so unfortunately we must now envisage the most tragic scenario," said Jean-Louis Borloo, the second most senior figure in the cabinet.
Mr Borloo told France Info radio that the plane had disappeared from military as well as civilian radar screens.
Air traffic control lost contact with the Airbus A330 at 0600 GMT (4pm AEST) after it took off from Rio de Janeiro bound for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where it had been due to land at 0910 GMT (7.10pm AEST).
"We are very worried," said a Paris airport official.
"The plane disappeared from the screens several hours ago. It could be a transponder problem, but this kind of fault is very rare and the plane did not land when expected."
Brazil's air force says its planes have begun searching for the airliner.
Henry Wilson, a Brazilian air force spokesman, said planes had taken off from the island of Fernando de Noronha off Brazil's north-east coast to look for the Air France jet.
An Air France-KLM spokeswoman in Amsterdam said there had been no radio contact with the missing plane "for a while".
The plane was an Airbus 330-200, according to the Paris airports authority website.
Air France said relatives of people travelling on board flight AF 447 were being taken care of in a special area of Charles de Gaulle airport.
Five Italians were on the flight, ANSA news agency has reported, but authorities have not yet confirmed they were onboard.
Brazil had two major plane crashes in 2006 and 2007, raising concerns about the safety of air travel in Latin America's largest country.
In July 2007, all 187 people on board and 12 people on the ground died when a TAM airline Airbus A 320 overshot a runway at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport.
In September 2006, a Gol airline passenger jet crashed in the Amazon jungle after it and a small private plane collided.
All 154 people on board died.
- AFP/Reuters
Not looking good. :(
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2007/10/261.jpg
French plane lost over Atlantic
An Air France plane carrying 228 people from Brazil's Rio de Janeiro to France has gone missing over the Atlantic.
Air France said the plane sent a message at 0214 GMT saying it had an electrical short circuit after experiencing turbulence.
Brazil's air force said a search and rescue mission was under way near the island of Fernando de Noronha.
It added that the plane was well across the Atlantic when it disappeared, and the search had to cover a wide area.
French minister Jean-Louis Borloo said the plane had probably had an accident and ruled out hijacking.
An airport official told AFP the Airbus 330-200 had been expected to arrive in Paris at 1110 local time (0910 GMT).
Another official said it was possible that the plane had a transponder problem but this was very rare.
"We are very worried," he said, quoted by AFP news agency.
Crisis centre
Mr Borloo, the minister in charge of transport, said the plane would already have run out of fuel.
"By now it would be beyond its kerosene reserves so unfortunately we must now envisage the most tragic scenario," he said, quoted by Reuters news agency.
Flight AF 447 left Rio at 1900 local time (2200 GMT) on Sunday. It had 216 passengers and 12 crew on board, including three pilots.
An Air France spokeswoman said there had been no radio contact with the plane "for a while".
TIMELINE
<li class="bull"> Flight AF 447 left Rio at 1900 local time (2200 GMT) on Sunday <li class="bull"> Airbus A330-200 carrying 216 passengers and at least 12 crew <li class="bull"> Contact lost 0130 GMT <li class="bull"> Missed scheduled landing at 1110 local time (0910 GMT) in Paris
It is reported to have disappeared 300km (186 miles) north-east of the Brazilian city of Natal.
Brazilian air force spokesman Col Henry Munhoz told Brazilian TV it had failed to be picked up by radar on the Cape Verde Islands on its way across the Atlantic.
"Air force planes left Fernando de Noronha and are flying towards Europe to start the search for the missing plane," he said.
Airport authorities have set up a crisis centre at Charles de Gaulle.
An Air France official told AFP that people awaiting the flight would be received in a special area at the airport's second terminal.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been informed of the incident and has expressed his deep concern, his office said.
He has demanded that the relevant authorities do everything they can to find the plane and "shed light on the circumstances surrounding its disappearance as rapidly as possible".
This is the first major incident in Brazilian air space since a Tam flight crashed in Sao Paulo in July 2007 killing 199 people.
Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Americas | French plane lost over Atlantic
Published: 2009/06/01 11:53:59 GMT
© BBC MMIX
:( Very, very sad.
Very scary. Worst fears expected regarding stories of this nature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog
Considering all long-hauls are equipped with automatic location beacons.....hope all is well.
Are Air France still using old, decrepit aeroplanes like the one I was on from Paris to Bangkok?
Same Thai AirwaysQuote:
Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog
Fly Arab (regettably)
Registration: F-GZCP ? C/n / msn: 660 First flight: 2005-02-25 (4 years 3 months)no not this time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog
To be honest, I'm always amazed at arriving at the destination without incident.
Conservative engineer type who was taught that the design fatigue life for many airplane components was something in the order of 1000 cycles.
This reminds me of the SAA Helderberg disaster of former years.
226 souls on board! :(
My heart goes out to the families.
To be fair with the industry, think of the thousands of flights daily - month in a month out - without incident. The occasional mishap or tragedy brings much attention to our senses. It's an imperfect universe. I'm hoping the best for this latest event.Quote:
Originally Posted by watterinja
Update on BBC News......
"An Air France plane carrying 228 people from Brazil to France has vanished over the Atlantic after a possible lightning strike, airline officials say.
The Airbus sent an automatic message at 0214 GMT, four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro, reporting a short circuit as it flew through strong turbulence. It was well over the ocean when it was lost, making Brazilian and French search planes' task more difficult. Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris has set up a crisis centre.
"The plane might have been struck by lightning - it's a possibility," Francois Brousse, head of communications at Air France, told reporters in Paris.
France's minister responsible for transportation, Jean-Louis Borloo, ruled out hijacking as a cause of the plane's loss".
Sadly, it seems all hope is lost :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Rural Surin
They are now talking about rapid 'de-pressurisation and massive structural failure' what ever that implies. Sky News
If it was stuck by lighting, there is a chance that if a carbon composite part of the aircraft was stuck,it would just disintegrate.And the rest of the aircraft would brake up.Quote:
Originally Posted by crippen
passenger nationalities revealed
Most of the passengers on board the Air France plane which has disappeared over the Atlantic were Brazilians and French nationals, airline officials said.
Air France confirmed 61 French and 58 Brazilian passengers were among the 216 passengers on board flight 447.
A list provided by Brazil's authorities showed 26 Germans were also on board as well as nine Chinese and nine Italians.
Six Swiss, five British, five Lebanese and four Hungarians were on the flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
Those on board also included three Irish, three Norwegians, three Slovaks, two Americans two Moroccans, as well as individuals from Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Demark, the Netherlands, Estonia, the Philippines, The Gambia, Iceland, Romania, Russia, South Africa, Sweden and Turkey.
No details have yet been given about the 12 crew.
Phone line
"Air France expresses its deepest sympathy to the relatives and friends of the passengers and crew who were on board this flight," the airline said in a statement on its website.
It said it was doing its utmost to support relatives and friends, and had set up counselling services at both the French and Brazilian airports.
A special phone line has been set up for relatives and friends.
The Michelin tyre company earlier said three of its executives were on the flight, including the president of its South American operations, Luiz Roberto Anastacio.
It is also believed that Erich Heine, an executive board member at the German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp, was on board.
He is also the chairman of the company's Brazilian unit - Companhia Siderurgica do Atlantico - a joint venture between ThyssenKrupp and a Brazilian mining company.
Apparently this particular plane model (Airbus) has a very good saftey recordQuote:
Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog
From the sketchy news it sounds as if they are just searching along the flight path.
If planes go down it is usually after takeoff or before landing. They can be found even over sea. This one got lost from flight altitude in the middle of the ocean.
I do wonder, how precisely they can determine at what time the plane went down. If they cannot determine that from the radiocontacts with any precision they have to search a vast area of ocean and may never find it. How long woud any debis float on the surface?
The A330-200 is a very robust workhorse, an electric failure during turbulence...well, lets see what the blackbox has to tell.
I was flying cockpit once, on a stby tkt, in an MD11. We had some real turbulence, but not as much as a fuse popped. ( i was pax not crew)
Seems odd there was no radio contact either.
No mayday sent indicates something catastrophic happened as they were too busy to send. Even has a one touch distress system so looks like she may have gone straight down from cruising altitude. They did report a depressurization. Flying through heavy turbulence in the ITCZ.
Terrible.
Interesting perspective here:
-- Miles O'Brien is a pilot, airplane owner and freelance journalist who lives in Manhattan. His blog is located here Miles O'Brien - Uplinks - True/Slant --
By Miles O'Brien
NEW YORK (Reuters.com) -- So what happened to Air France Flight 447? It is early and speculation at this juncture is often wildly wrong. And remember, there are usually several factors that conspire to bring an airliner down. But here is what we do know for sure. Keep this in mind as you process the often inaccurate reporting on aviation that is so prevalent in the mainstream media.
The Timeline - The flight, carrying 216 passengers and 12 crewmembers, left Rio de Janeiro at 6:03 p.m. Sunday EDT (7:03 PM local time). It flew beyond radar coverage 3 hours and 33 minutes later (at 9:33 p.m. EDT). A half hour later (10 p.m. EDT) - now four hours into the flight - the plane encountered heavy turbulence. Fifteen minutes later (10:15 p.m. EDT), now a long way out to sea, it transmitted an automated signals indicating the plane was in serious trouble.
"A succession of a dozen technical messages (showed that) several electrical systems had broken down," according to Air France CEO Pierre-Henry Gourgeon. He described the failures, which included (most ominously) the pressurization system as "totally unprecedented situation in the plane."
It was a dark and stormy night - in a place that is home to the world's worst thunderstorms. Just as it disappeared, the Airbus A330-203 was flying into a thick band of convective activity that rose to 41,000 feet. This equatorial region is known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone - it is where Northeast and Southeast Trade Winds meet - forcing a lot of warm, moist air upward - which condenses - an efficient thunderstorm producing machine.
The crew had "Sully-esque" seasoning - The Captain had 11,000 hours total time (1700 in the Airbus A330/A340). One Copilot had 3,000 hours total time (800 in the Airbus A330/340) and the other Copilot had 6,600 hours total time (2,600 in the Airbus A330/340).
The Airbus A330 has a good record - and this was the first crash of a twin-engine A330 in revenue service in its history. In 1994, seven employees of Airbus died when a 330 went down during a test flight. The accident report says it was a case of pilot error. The airplane that crashed last night - tail number F-GZCP - had no accidents or incidents in its history. It went into service on April 18, 2005 and had logged 18,870 hours. It was in the hangar in mid-April for routine maintenance. No serious squawks reported.
No reason to believe terrorism - While you cannot take the possibility of a bomb off the list just yet, no groups have claimed any responsibility for downing the plane. What good is a terrorist attack if the perpetrators don't, well, terrorize us?
So consider this as a possible scenario. The crew is flying toward a line of storms in the dark, out of range of land-based radar. They are equipped with on board weather radar however - and can use it to thread their way through the bad cells if need be.
It is quite likely the airplane was struck by lightning - it could have triggered lightning by the mere act of flying at Mach .8 through storm clouds. It is not impossible that could have triggered a fuel fire - but that is highly unlikely. In fact, it has been four decades since lightning alone caused an airliner crash in the US. A lot of time and effort is spent protecting airplanes from the clear and present danger (interesting piece here). And airliners get hit by lightning all the time - you don't hear about it because nothing bad happens. Remember, it is seldom just one thing that brings a modern airliner down.
And many of those airliners that get hit are so called fly-by-wire aircraft (meaning the controls in the cockpit are linked to the movable surfaces on the airplane by electrical wires and computers). Airbus pioneered FBW control systems in commercial airliners. And the engineers in Toulouse have gone out of their way to demonstrate their products are safe in stormy weather. There are four fully redundant electrical systems on an Airbus - and if the worst happens, a manual flight control system that allows the crew to fly the plane (barely) using the rudder, differential thrust on the engines and horizontal stabilizer trim.
Ironically, one of the systems most vulnerable to lightning strikes is the on-board weather radar located in the nose cone. It cannot do its job if it is shielded from lightning like the rest of the airplane is - and so it is more likely to go down when bolt strikes (which is, of course, when you need it most). So it is possible this plane was hit by lightning, knocking out the radar.
You can imagine the crew was suddenly preoccupied with multiple electric failures that left them in the dark, over the ocean and without weather radar as they hurtled toward some epic cumulus nimbus thunderheads. This would have been serious emergency that should prompt a pilot to do a 180 and head for the nearest suitable size slab of concrete.
But consider this possibility: most Captains on long hauls over the pond prefer to be on the flight deck for take-off and landing. Was the most seasoned aviator in his bunk when the weather hit the fans?
The fact that the airplane sent automatic warnings that it had an electrical problem means, by definition, that it was not a total, instant failure. But did things cascade from there? They might have found themselves inside a huge storm only able to control the airplane manually - which means minimally - with the rudder primarily.
And then there is the Aribus rudder. You may recall the crash of American Airlines flight 587 on November 12, 2001 as it departed New York's JFK airport. The plane encountered some wake turbulence and the copilot apparently stepped too hard on the rudder pedals - breaking off the graphite vertical stabilizer and rudder (the tail).
Even today's advanced - seemingly invincible airliners are no match for Mother Nature on a bad night. If a big airplane ends up in the teeth of a powerful thunderstorm, it could be torn to pieces in an instant.
We do know whatever happened on that airplane in its last few minutes was nothing short of horrifying. It is hard to imagine the kind of turbulence that would break up an airliner. My heart goes out to the passengers and crew.
Will we ever know what happened? This one will be hard. The wreckage will be likely strewn over a wide area - and locating the Flight Data and Cockpit Voice Recorders won't be easy since they are likely at the bottom of the sea - hopefully emitting their homing signals. But just knowing where to search will be difficult.
One thing which may help: those automatic messages indicating system failures - which are designed primarily to give mechanics a heads up about problems so they can turn a plane around on the ground faster - no doubt contained much more information than is now in the public realm.
Which brings me to one of my pet peeves: why not send steady streams of telemetry from airliners to the ground all the time - ala NASA and the shuttle? Imagine how invaluable that much data would be right now - given the distinct possibility this could remain an unsolved mystery.
We all need to know what happened to Air France 447. Is there something that makes the A-330 fleet unsafe in certain conditions? In the absence of real facts, will conspiracy theorists spin a tale of terrorism and government cover ups? Did the flight crew make crucial errors in judgment? Or was this an unavoidable scenario - bad luck with odds so long that nothing or no one is really to blame?
Not true. I work in the industry and can tell you these things are over designed if anything. There is a lot of redundancy designed in as well. Most air accidents are due to pilot error or maintenance error, rarely fatigue. The Airbust that lost it's vertical stabilizer is the last one I can think of and that was a manufacturing problem as I recall. To early to tell but my guess is this was pilot error, did not take a flight path to avoid the storm.Quote:
Originally Posted by watterinja
Was the pilot and crew French?Quote:
Originally Posted by jandajoy
Torn apart.Quote:
Originally Posted by crippen
According to a couple of other sites, data was still being transmitted after the last position update. This data is sent to the ground automatically without any interaction from the flight crew. Airbus and Air France are said to be studying this yet unpublished information, I am sure we will know sooner rather than later.
RIP
Would you then know the fatigue design life for the critical structural components? The fatigue life curve (stress versus cycles) information would be very interesting. For many non-ferrous materials, there is no 'knee' in the S-N curve, implying that these components will fail under cyclic fatigue loading - over time. The common design life was around the 10^3 (1000) cycle range, as I understood.Quote:
Originally Posted by tuktukdriverNot true. I work in the industry and can tell you these things are over designed if anything. There is a lot of redundancy designed in as well. Most air accidents are due to pilot error or maintenance error, rarely fatigue. The Airbust that lost it's vertical stabilizer is the last one I can think of and that was a manufacturing problem as I recall. To early to tell but my guess is this was pilot error, did not take a flight path to avoid the storm.Quote:
Originally Posted by watterinja
If you could share your engineering design knowledge, it would be very interesting.
That they are designed as solidly as possible - of course, within reason, it's just that the face weight limits.
Very sad indeed for the relatives...could give a monkeys that there were executives on board!!...don't see the relevance of that??? they were surely all just petrified people praying to what ever god they believed in to get them through it?! or Atheists just screaming 'FUC* I don't wanna die'
Either way the plane was no doubt at cruising altitude so unless the crew tried to get the plane lower very quickly...then hopefully if there was de-pressurization then maybe alot of people passed out...if not it's a long slow way down....to a sea full of these guys
https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gifhttps://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/06/32.jpghttps://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/06/33.jpghttps://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/06/34.jpg
Just hope they were dead before meeting this lot.
Sorry but it's true
Tales of tragedy behind Air France disaster
By Europe correspondent Emma Alberici for AM
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Posted 28 minutes ago
Updated 22 minutes ago
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/06/54.jpg Search for wreckage: An Air France Airbus similar to that lost over the Atlantic
The story behind the disappearance of Air France Flight 447 is looking increasingly grim, with reports that the Brazilian air force has spotted debris including plane seats floating in two separate parts of the Atlantic Ocean.
There has been no confirmation that it is wreckage from the missing plane and weather conditions are hampering the international search effort.
It is now a race against time to find the black box flight recorders which should continue to emit signals, even in water, for only 30 days.
There were five Britons on Flight 447. Included among them was Alexander Bjoroy, an 11-year-old who was travelling alone on a British passport.
He went to boarding school in England and had been holidaying with his parents in Brazil during half-term break.
He was a student at Clifton College in Bristol, where head teacher John Milne held a special assembly to reflect on the tragedy.
"Alexander joined the prep school in January 2009, and was a well-liked and respected boarder. He will be sorely missed by pupils and staff. Our deepest sympathies and condolences are with Alexander's family at this time," Mr Milne said.
Sixty-one-year-old structural engineer Arthur Coakley was also among the 228 people on the flight which left Rio De Janeiro bound for Paris.
His wife, Patricia Coakley, spoke to Sky News.
"He shouldn't have been on that flight, he should have been on the earlier flight," she said.
"He was really excited about coming home, seeing the children, and we're going on holiday to Corfu, where we have lots of Greek friends... I hope Art was asleep, and I hope he wasn't frightened."
The Airbus A330 went missing over the southern Atlantic Ocean somewhere between Brazil and the West African coast shortly after the plane sent an automatic message reporting an electrical fault.
Overnight, the Brazilian air force said they found what appeared to be parts of the wreckage.
They spotted small white fragments, plane seats, a life vest, a turbine as well as oil and kerosene floating in the Atlantic 650 kilometres north east of Brazil's Fernando de Noronha Island.
But what they are most desperately searching for is the black box flight recorder which holds the key to establishing exactly what happened to the doomed flight.
Experts say it is probably on the ocean floor which, in the area where the search is being conducted, is between 3,000 and 7,000 kilometres deep.
John Perry Fish is the vice-president of American Underwater Search and Survey, a company that specialises in retrieving hard to reach items. He has experience in locating black box flight recorders in water.
"Cockpit voice recorder and the digital flight data recorder are equipped with pinger beacons which, as soon as they're submerged in water, emit a pulse once per second," Mr Fish said.
"This pulse can be detected by a directional beacon receiver, and it can tell you what direction the pingers are, and the pingers of course attached to the data recorders."
The debris found in the Atlantic will need to be analysed. That will not happen until boats make it back to shore.
For the families waiting for news at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, that could mean waiting at least another day to find out what happened to their loved ones.
Now that is deepQuote:
3,000 and 7,000 kilometres deep
They have found the crash area:
Quote:
Brazil says debris from crash jet
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/06/56.jpg Brazilian and French teams have been searching the Atlantic Ocean
Debris spotted by planes in waters 650km (400 miles) off Brazil's coast belongs to a missing French airliner, the Brazilian government has confirmed.
Defence Minister Nelson Jobim said he had no doubt the debris was from the Air France jet carrying 228 people.
A Brazilian search plane saw a band of wreckage along a 5km (3m) strip, Mr Jobim told reporters in Rio de Janeiro. There was no report of survivors.
Flight AF 447 was heading from Rio to Paris when it was lost early on Monday.
See a map of the plane's route
The discovery of the debris confirmed "that the plane went down" in the area, Mr Jobim said.
He gave few details of the wreckage, saying only that it included metallic and non-metallic pieces.
Earlier, Brazil's air force said it had spotted an airplane seat, an orange buoy and signs of fuel.
Mr Jobim's words will come as grim confirmation of the worst for the families waiting for news both in Paris and Rio, the BBC's Gary Duffy reports from Brazil.
Jean-Louis Borloo, the French minister for transport, said the chance of finding anyone alive was now "very, very small - even nonexistent".
If it is confirmed that all 228 people on Flight AF 447 are dead, it will be the worst loss of life in Air France's history.
Ships on hand
Naval boats are due to arrive in the crash zone on Wednesday, while three merchant vessels are already in the area, the Brazilian defence minister said.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2005/11/91.jpg TIMELINE
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/06/57.jpg
Flight AF 447 left Rio at 1900 local time (2200 GMT) on Sunday
Airbus A330-200 carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew
Contact lost 0130 GMT
Missed scheduled landing at 1110 local time (0910 GMT) in Paris
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Timeline of Flight AF 447
Air disasters timeline
Mystery of Air France flight
What's being said on the web
If any bodies are found, they will be transported by ship to the nearest airport, on Brazil's archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, he was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
The defence minister warned that the recovery of the plane's cockpit voice and data recorders could be difficult because of the depth of the ocean.
"It could be at a depth of 2,000m or 3,000m [6,500ft-9,800ft] in that area of the ocean," he said.
He made the announcement after visiting relatives of those aboard the flight, who were being looked after in a Rio hotel by teams including psychological and medical personnel.
France is also sending a research ship equipped with two mini-submarines to the disaster area.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the search teams over the Atlantic were "in a race against the clock in extremely difficult weather conditions".
Distress call mystery
Most of the missing people are Brazilian or French but they include a total of 32 nationalities. Five Britons and three Irish citizens are among them.
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Francois Fillon
French prime minister
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Grief and fear in Brazil
In pictures: Search continues
Did storm down missing plane?
On Tuesday, the French National Assembly held a minute's silence for those on board the plane, and thanked countries involved in the search.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy will attend a religious service for the families and friends of the missing passengers and crew at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Fillon told the French parliament that the cause of the plane's loss had still to be established.
"Our only certainty is that the plane did not send out any distress call but regular automatic alerts for three minutes indicating the failure of all systems," he said.
Experts remain puzzled that there were no radio reports from the Airbus and they say that such a modern aircraft would have had to suffer multiple traumas to plunge into the sea, the BBC's Adam Mynott reports from Paris.
very sad
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobcock
Indeed . . . perhaps metres should be used instead of kilometres . . .
Although plane crashes are a relatively rare occurrence it does bring home to us who fly often that plane crashes, unlike car crashes, are usually deadly.
horrific ending
RIP to those who passed away.