Air France plane missing
- Filed under: Uncategorized
- Date: Jun 1,2009
A French passenger aircraft carrying 228 people has disappeared off the coast of Brazil, airline officials say. Air 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. Brazil’s air force confirmed the plane was missing and said a search and rescue mission was under way near the island of Fernando de Noronha.
Brazilian air force spokesman Col Henry Munhoz told Brazilian TV it had failed to be picked up by radar on the Cape Verde Islands on its way across the Atlantic.
“Air force planes left Fernando de Noronha and are flying towards Europe to start the search for the missing plane,” he said.
Airport authorities have set up a crisis centre at Charles de Gaulle.
An Air France official told AFP that people awaiting the flight would be received in a special area at the airport’s second terminal.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been informed of the incident and has expressed his deep concern, his office said.
He has demanded that the relevant authorities do everything they can to find the plane and “shed light on the circumstances surrounding its disappearance as rapidly as possible”.
This is the first major incident in Brazilian air space since a Tam flight crashed in Sao Paulo in July 2007 killing 199 people.
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