Air France Jet Disappears on Flight From Brazil to Paris
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By CAROLINE BROTHERS
Published: June 1, 2009
PARIS — Air France said Monday that it had lost contact with a passenger plane travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. “We have received no news from flight AF 447,” said an Air France spokeswoman in Paris, Brigitte Barrand.
The plane was carrying 216 passengers and 12 crew members, she said.
A Brazilian Air Force spokesman, quoted by The Associated Press, said that the plane disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean and a search was under way near the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha. The plane disappeared about 186 miles northeast of the coastal Brazilian city of Natal and near Fernando de Noronha, the spokesman said.
The plane had been scheduled to land at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport at 11:15 a.m. Paris time after a nonstop flight that left Rio 7 p.m. local time on Sunday.
“We are very worried,” said an aviation official in Paris interviewed by Agence France-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.”