Air France passenger jet vanishes from radar

[karo]

A French passenger aircraft carrying 228 people has disappeared off the coast of Brazil, airline officials say.
ir France told CNN the jet was making the 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when contact was lost. Brazil's air force launched a search near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha in the Atlantic Ocean, 365 km (226 miles) from Brazil's coast, the country's state media said.
Air France said flight AF447 was carrying 216 passengers in addition to a crew of 12. The plane is listed as an Airbus A330.
A crisis center is being set up at Charles de Gaulle where the plane had been due to land at 11.15 a.m. local time.
"We are very worried," an aviation official told Agence Frane-Presse. "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."


The Airbus 330 is a twin-engine long-range aircraft introduced into commercial aviation in the 1990s. CNN air travel expert Richard Quest says the plane, a workhorse of trans-Atlantic routes, has an impeccable safety record.
"It has very good range, and is extremely popular with airlines because of its versatility," he said.

[chris7891]

I just heard this on the news. This is crazy!

[AudreyII]

I'm trying to follow this, very confusing, noone seems to know where it actually lost contact. It doesn't look good to say the least...

[Sternchen]

Very very strange....just so your post won't get closed I'll post the source link from CNN:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/am...zil/index.html

But wouldn't there have been some cause for alarm when the plane disappeared from the Radar? Why did they wait until the plane should have landed?

[sweetlove]

So tragic. I flew AF to and from the same region a few weeks ago, so this kinda hits close to home for me. Sadly, I don't think there is much hope left to find it :(

[diamond_lover]

OMG, this is scary. I am flying Air France in August to Paris and I know it isn't something that applies to just one airline. But makes me even more nervous. I hope the jet is found.

[Liberté]

Terrifying for such a thing to happen with such a reputable company and vehicule.

[Jahpson]

yikes, that is so sad. I think there is a reason why it cannot be found....

[HauteMama]

Sadly, it would have run out of fuel by now, so the plane has almost certainly gone down. There is now speculation that the plane might have been hit by lightning.

[lostnexposed]

Originally Posted by Jahpson

yikes, that is so sad. I think there is a reason why it cannot be found....

This is so scary!
Is there even any hope that somehow they managed to get out and onto the lifeboats? Or somehow there was a malfunction but they've managed to land somewhere?

[Kim1980]

This is such a sad, sad story. I am so shocked to hear about it, my prayers go out to the people on the plane and their families!

[bagaholic85]

...praying for a happy ending...

[dressage queen]

Originally Posted by Sternchen

But wouldn't there have been some cause for alarm when the plane disappeared from the Radar? Why did they wait until the plane should have landed?

i'm not entirely sure about this, but i believe that commercial aviation radar systems are ground-based and don't extend over the horizon. and since radar signals travel in straight lines, that would mean that any plane would fall off north american radar upon crossing past the horizon and only appear on european radar when crossing theirs. over-the-horizon radar was developed during the cold war for national defense purposes, but has been pretty much replaced by sattelite tracking.

so i think flight tracking over large bodies of water is done via radio. and i belive the concern started before they were supposed to have landed, when there was an automated radio transmission of loss of cabin pressure and then no further communication.

[Roo]

I feel so bad for the families.

[HauteMama]

^ I agree. I think that radar cannot follow a plane across the ocean, so there is an expected lapse in radar between when one continent loses them and the next picks them up. Radio communication is generally kept in between, but I think radio contact was lost, too.