Breaking News: French Plane Disappears

[Robot Chicken]

Oh dear...

French plane lost over Atlantic

An Air France plane carrying at least 228 people from Brazil has disappeared from radar screens over the Atlantic.

Paris Charles de Gaulle airport said contact was lost with the flight from Rio de Janeiro at 0600 GMT. Brazil's air force confirmed the disappearance. An airport official told AFP the Airbus 330 had been expected to arrive in Paris at 1110 local time (0910 GMT).

Another official said it was possible that the plane had a transponder problem but this was very rare.

"We are very worried," he said, quoted by AFP news agency. "The plane disappeared from the screens several hours ago."

Flight AF 447 left Rio at 1900 local time (2200 GMT) on Sunday. It had 216 passengers and 12 crew on board.

Airport authorities have set up a crisis centre at Charles de Gaulle.

Page last updated at 10:17 GMT, Monday, 1 June 2009 11:17 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8076848.stm

 

[severnside gull]

Tragic. It looks like it went down a long way out over the Atlantic. Will be hard to find and probably impossible to recover to ascertain what happened.

 

[NF9]

It may of ditched successfully, though very doubtful.
Lets just pray that there are some survivors and that they find the plane if indeed it has gone down ASAP,
I hope its not a Hijacking/Bombing.

 

[itszamora]

It does look bad, when I first heard I thought it could have been a problem with the radar transponder on the plane but it hasn't landed when it should have. As others have said hopefully it has ditched or something.

 

[Twinkle Toes]

Just heard it on the radio & a chill went down my spine. Not good.

 

[bristolseagull]

shit, scary stuff

 

[pishhead]

It looks bad, as they said on the news if one of the engines failed they still would have had many other options. Lets hope its not terrorism.
Terrible news either way.

 

[gruntage]

i hope they don't bump into the others





on a serious note, it is very sad news, i hope if it did ditch, they are found soon and there are survivors.

 

[Dick Knights Mumm]

It is abit of a fallacy that airliners can ditch mid-ocean isn't it ? I know the chap did it in New York - but they were lucky with the calm of the water and the relatively low speed after take-off. I always thought the life-jacket instructions were to make you feel re-assured somehow.

 

[adrian29uk]

Did not another Air France Airbus crash a few years back. Aparently these Airbuses are known to do strange things.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

It is abit of a fallacy that airliners can ditch mid-ocean isn't it ? I know the chap did it in New York - but they were lucky with the calm of the water and the relatively low speed after take-off. I always thought the life-jacket instructions were to make you feel re-assured somehow.

Correct

 

[Icy Gull]

Poor sods, my worst nightmare, feel physically sick thinking about it.

Airbus seems to have a much worse than average record for crashes and incidents.

 

[lighthouse]

O Lord. Not what you want to hear when you are flying in less than 24 hours.

 

[NF9]

It took off at 10pm our time last night, and was due in Paris at 9.10am (again our time) this morning. It went missing at 6am this morning, ie 8 hours into an 11 hour flight. Yet they're searching around an island just off the coast of Brazil. How does that work? Surely if they lost contact at 6am it's going to be a hell of a lot nearer Europe than that?

Not necessarily because a flight from RIO to Paris would spend around 8 hours over the Atlantic, also there is conflicting reports about what time they lost contact.
According to SKY News it lost contact at 1.30 am GMT, BBC Are saying 3.20 am.

 

[Dave the OAP]

O Lord. Not what you want to hear when you are flying in less than 24 hours.

Yes, I am on a plane to Paris on Wednesday morning

 

[The Spanish]

It took off at 10pm our time last night, and was due in Paris at 9.10am (again our time) this morning. It went missing at 6am this morning, ie 8 hours into an 11 hour flight. Yet they're searching around an island just off the coast of Brazil. How does that work? Surely if they lost contact at 6am it's going to be a hell of a lot nearer Europe than that?

you should ring them up and tell them this, quick.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Wednesday as well. Not Paris thugh.

 

[Acker79]

Not necessarily because a flight from RIO to Paris would spend around 8 hours over the Atlantic, also there is conflicting reports about what time they lost contact.
According to SKY News it lost contact at 1.30 am GMT, BBC Are saying 3.20 am.

There's also the question of "just off the coast". How far is that? For a lot of people in England we wouldn't say cornwall is just a little west of Brighton. But someone from Texas probably would because of the size of their geography.

Brazil is a big country so "just off the coast" could be an hour or two's flight out to sea.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Wednesday as well. Not Paris thugh.

I am training some French users on an American Portal system. I cant speak French, they cant speak English.

I am really looking forward to this immensely