The chances of finding any survivor of the missing plane Air France Flight AF447, which was carrying 228 Passengers and is presumed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, are growing dim and it still remains a big mystery. If no survivors are found from the Air France AF447 plane, it will be the worst loss of life involving an Air France plane in the firm's 75 year history.
The plane was an Airbus 330-200 (EAD.PA) powered with General Electric (GE.N) engines. If the plane is confirmed to have crashed, it would be the first time an A330 has been lost during an operational airline flight.
Air France said the plane had clocked 18,870 flight hours and went into service in April 2005. It last underwent maintenance in a hangar in April this year.
Air France said the Airbus A330-200 jet was probably hit by lightning. The Brazilian and French air forces sent out search planes to scour a vast area of ocean, but officials also held out little hope of finding survivors.
None of the airliner's emergency beacons, which are trackable by satellite unless they sink deep into the ocean, have been detected, suggesting it crashed violently, said Philippe Hazanne of the French space studies agency.
French Environment minister Jean-Louis Borloo said hijacking had been ruled out and that the plane had probably had some kind of accident. There's nothing on Spanish radar, nothing on Moroccan radar, nothing on French radar.
Air France said that among the 216 passengers, there are 126 men, 82 women, seven children and a baby. The crew was made up of 12 members, including nine cabin crew.
In Rio, Air France spokesman Jorge Asuncao said there were 80 Brazilian passengers, 73 French, 18 Germans, nine Italians, six Americans, five Chinese, four Hungarians, two Spanish, two British, two Moroccans and two Irish.
There were also nationals, one each from Angola, Argentina, Belgium, Iceland, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.
Flight AF 447 hit fierce turbulence at about 0200 GMT (0730 hrs IST) about four hours after it left Rio, and 14 minutes later sent an automatic error message reporting a fault in an electrical circuit. France also asked the US military to use its network of spy satellites.
Posted by Preeti Bachhan | Views 574 | 
