Missing Air France jet: Debris found
French president Nicolas Sarkozy says chances of finding survivors from missing Air France jet "very slim" (Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License)
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Tuesday, 02, Jun 2009 06:57
Brazilian pilots searching for signs of an Air France jet believed to have crashed in the Atlantic yesterday with 228 people on board say they have found plane seats floating in the ocean.
Jet fuels such as oil and kerosene were observed along with other metallic debris at a spot 650km north-east of Fernando do Noronha off the Brazilian coast.
In a televised statement the county's air force said it could not confirm the wreckage definitely belonged to flight AF447.
All 216 passengers and 12 crew on board the Airbus 330-200 are feared dead.
After speaking with relatives of passengers and crew at Charles de Gaulle airport, where the flight was due to arrive yesterday, Nicolas Sarkozy said the prospects of finding any survivors were "very slim".
"It's a catastrophe the likes of which Air France has never seen," the French president said.
His Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he had telephoned Mr Sarkozy for what amounted to an "exchange of condolences".
The Air France Airbus 330-200 left Rio de Janeiro at 19:30 local time (23:30 BST) and was due to arrive in the French capital at 11:10 Paris time (10:10 BST).
But at around 02:50 BST it disappeared from radar somewhere over the Atlantic, later falter to make scheduled radio contact at about 04:20 BST.
Pilots flying in the opposite direction over the Atlantic reported seeing "orange spots" in the ocean, with the chief executive of Air France saying the plane had almost certainly crashed between Brazil and Africa.
Pierre-Henry said automated messages sent by the plane's computer at 03:15 BST showed "several electrical systems had broken down".
"It is probable that it was shortly after these messages that the impact in the Atlantic came," he told journalists yesterday.
Of the 228 people on board the plane, 32 countries were represented among the passengers and 12 French crew members.
Most were French and Brazilian, with Air France revealing five Britons and three Irish citizens were also on board.
If the worst is confirmed and all 228 people on board have died, the crash would represent the worst loss of life in Air France's history and the deadliest accident for civil aviation in more than a decade.