No Fun with Flying Story

Air France: Missing plane hit turbulence
Associated Press • June 1, 2009



SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) — A missing Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris ran into lightning and strong thunderstorms over the Atlantic Ocean, officials said Monday. Brazil began a search mission off its northeastern coast.


Chief Air France spokesman Francois Brousse said it is possible the plane was hit by lightning.


Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330, left Rio on Sunday at 7 p.m. local time (2200 GMT, 6 p.m. EDT) with 216 passengers and 12 crew members on board, company spokeswoman Brigitte Barrand.


About four hours later, the plane sent an automatic signal indicating electrical problems while going through strong turbulence, Air France said.


The plane "crossed through a thunderous zone with strong turbulence" at 0200 GMT Monday (10 p.m. EDT Sunday). An automatic message was received fourteen minutes later "signaling electrical circuit malfunction."


Brazil's air force did not know where the aircraft disappeared, but a spokesman said it was searching near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha because if an accident had happened in Brazilian waters, it would be in that area.


The spokesman said there was no immediate indication of what might have happened to the plane. He spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with department policy.


Two Brazilian Air Force planes were searching the waters about 300 kilometers northeast of the coastal city of Natal near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, a Brazilian air force spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with air force policy.


The region is about 1,500 miles northeast of Rio.


A police official on Fernando de Noronha said the weather was clear 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 news. "It could be a long, sad story. The black box will be at the bottom of the sea."