SAO PAULO, Brazil – An Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris lost contact with air traffic controllers over the Atlantic Ocean, officials said Monday. Brazil began a search mission off its northeastern coast.
Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330, was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members, company spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand said. The flight left Rio on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time.
The plane disappeared about 190 miles (300 kilometers) northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal, near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, a Brazilian air force spokesman said. The air force began a search began Monday morning near Fernando de Noronha, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with air force policy.
The region is about 1,500 miles northeast of Rio.
An official with France’s transport agency said contact with the plane was lost at 0220 GMT Monday (10:20 p.m. EDT Sunday). The official was not authorized to be named according to agency policy.
A police official on Fernando de Noronha said the weather was clear in the area of the archipelago last night into this morning.
“It’s going to take a long time to carry out this search,” Douglas Ferreira Machado, head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil’s Civil Aeronautics Agency, or ANAC, told Globo. “It could be a long, sad story. The black box will be at the bottom of the sea.”
Aviation experts said it was clear the plane was not in the air any longer, due to the amount of fuel it would have been carrying.
“It’s nearly three hours overdue. There has been no receipt of a mayday call. The conclusion to be drawn is that something catastrophic happened on board that has caused this airplane to ditch in a controlled or an uncontrolled fashion,” Jane’s Aviation analyst Chris Yates told The Associated Press.
“I would suggest that potentially it went down very quickly and so quickly that the pilots on board didn’t have a chance to make that emergency call,” Yates said, adding that the possibilities ranged from mechanical failure to terrorism.
Barrand said the airline set up an information center at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport for the families of those aboard. That center said 60 French citizens were on the plane.
“Air France regrets to announce that it is without news from Air France flight 447 flying from Rio to Paris,” she said. “Air France shares the emotion and worry of the families concerned.”
The flight was scheduled to arrive in Paris at 0915 GMT (5:15 a.m. EDT), according to the airport.
France’s minister in charge of transport, Jean-Louis Borloo, said there was a “real pessimism at this hour” about the fate of the aircraft.
“We can fear the worst,” he said on Europe-1 radio.
Airbus declined to comment until more details emerge.
The Airbus A330-200 is a twin-engine, long-haul, medium-capacity passenger jet, and is 58.8 meters (190 feet) long, according to Airbus. It is a shortened version of the standard A330, and can hold up to 253 passengers. It first went into service in 1998, there are 341 in use worldwide today. It can fly up to 7,760 miles (12,500 kilometers).
French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his “extreme worry” and sent ministers to Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport to monitor the situation.
__
Associated Press reporters Emma Vandore, Laurent Lemel and Laurent Pirot reported from Paris
