# Missing Air France airliner's passengers include one Canadian



## CougarKing (1 Jun 2009)

More updates to come as the situation develops.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090601/world/brazil_plane



> Air France jet hits thunderstorms over Atlantic; Canadian among missing
> 
> 2 hours, 16 minutes ago
> By The Associated Press
> ...


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## Yrys (1 Jun 2009)

French plane lost in ocean storm







An Air France plane carrying 228 people from Brazil to France has vanished over the Atlantic 
after flying into turbulence, airline officials say. The Airbus sent an automatic message at 
0214 GMT, four hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro, reporting a short circuit. It may have been 
damaged by lightning.

It was well over the ocean when it was lost, making Brazilian and French search planes' task 
more difficult. France's president said the chances of finding survivors were "very small". 
...
*Lightning theory doubts*

The Airbus 330-200 had been expected to arrive in Paris at 1110 local time (0910 GMT). 
It made its last radio contact with Brazilian air traffic controllers at 0133 GMT 
(2233 Brazilian time) when it was 565km (360m) off Brazil's north-eastern coast, Brazil's 
air force said.

The crew said they were planning to enter Senegalese airspace at 0220 GMT and 
that the plane was flying normally at an altitude of 10,670m (35,000ft).

At about 0200 GMT, the captain reported entering heavy turbulence caused by Atlantic storms, 
French media report.

At 0220, when Brazilian air traffic controllers saw the plane had not made its required radio 
call from Senegalese airspace, air traffic control in the Senegalese capital was contacted.

At 0530 GMT, Brazil's air force launched a search-and-rescue mission, sending out a coast guard 
patrol plane and a specialised air force rescue aircraft.

France is despatching three search planes based in Dakar, Senegal, and has asked the US to help 
with satellite technology. "The plane might have been struck by lightning - it's a possibility," Francois 
Brousse, head of communications at Air France, told reporters in Paris.

David Gleave, from Aviation Safety Investigations, told the BBC that planes were routinely struck by 
lightning, and the cause of the crash remained a mystery. "Aeroplanes get hit by lightning on quite a 
routine basis without generally any problems occurring at all," he told BBC Radio Five Live. "Whether 
it's related to this electrical storm and the electrical failure on the aeroplane, or whether it's another 
reason, we have to find the aeroplane first." France's minister responsible for transportation, Jean-Louis 
Borloo, ruled out hijacking as a cause of the plane's loss. 

*Tom Symonds, BBC News transport correspondent*






The Airbus A330 airliner is likely to have begun its journey tracking the coast of Brazil northwards 
before striking out across the Atlantic. A few hundred miles from the shore, radar coverage peters 
out - from there on, crews use high frequency radio to report their position.

The Brazilian Air Force says the plane left radar screens near the islands of Fernando de Noronha, 
230 miles from the coast. The firmest clue to its fate comes from the data message sent via a 
satellite network at 0214 GMT reporting electrical and pressurisation problems. This suggests whatever 
happened, happened before the crew could put out a mayday radio call. It was likely a sudden and 
catastrophic emergency. Even a double engine failure at cruising altitude would normally give the crew 
around half an hour's gliding time.

Air France says the plane may have been struck by lightning - the cause of around a dozen major air 
crashes in the last 50 years - but it rarely results in tragedy. More likely lightning damaged electrical 
systems, possibly leading indirectly to the plane's ditching.

Although passengers survived a landing on the Hudson River in New York in January - it is rarely 
successful, especially in the middle of an ocean the size of the Atlantic. 


Mystery surrounding Air France flight






The disappearance of Air France 447 is shrouded in an air of mystery that sets it apart 
from other aircraft disasters. Nearly all air crashes take place at or near airports - during 
take-off or landing. But the Airbus 330 came down four hours out of Rio de Janeiro, somewhere 
in a vast area of the Atlantic Ocean.

There was no distress signal.

The first Air France officials knew of something being wrong was when the plane failed to turn up 
on radar in Senegal. For many hours it was possible to think that AF447 had had a communications 
failure, or that it had made a forced landing at sea, or even that it had been hijacked.

For a time the arrivals board at Charles de Gaulle airport bore the word "delayed" - as if to keep alive 
as long as possible the dwindling hope of a miracle. The suffering of family members having to face the 
appalling reality can only be imagined. But it must have been made worse by the absence of any clear 
information about what has happened. Until wreckage is found, no-one is officially dead. 

'*Totally routine'*

In the absence of news, the airwaves have been crammed with all the regular disaster coverage: the coy 
intrusiveness of the television cameras, the repeated interviews with experts, the desperate hunt for a 
new angle - like the miracle couple who missed the plane because of a late taxi - in order to vary the 
fodder. Consensus quickly developed that the most likely cause of the accident was a lightning strike.

But as more than one expert pointed out, if lightning alone caused planes to crash, then few people would 
be so foolhardy as to risk flying. "For a plane to get hit by lightning is totally routine," said Pierre Sparaco, 
a member of the French Air and Space Academy. "That is not enough to explain it. There must be a missing 
link. It is clearly something and something. "Accident investigators talk always of a 'sequence of catastrophic 
events', and sequence is the key word," he said. "It is not this thing or that thing that went wrong. It is this 
thing going wrong, leading to that thing going wrong etc etc."

*Danger zone*

According to Mr Sparaco, even in a worst case scenario, with lightning wiping out all the electronics, a 
modern airliner is still flyable. "Something kicks in called the RAM air system, in which a small propeller 
descends and because of the speed of the plane generates enough electricity to run vital instruments.
"So even if there is a total power failure the pilot can still fly by wire long enough to get to land."

Meteorologists have been called in to explain what else might have happened, the extra factor that might 
have come on top of the lightning. The accident took place in a turbulent area along the equator known as 
the Intertropical Convergence zone. The zone has long been feared by sailors and aviators. In French, it is 
called the "pot au noir", meaning the murky cauldron.

According to meteorologist Pierre Lasnais, the zone "is prone to storms and lightning, but also to 
mini-cyclonic phenomena, which create extremely strong up currents, as well as hail stones that can be 
bigger than tennis-balls". "It's possible for a plane to be exposed to lightning, and at the same to be caught 
in an up current which can reach speeds of 200 km/h," he says. "You can imagine the effect that has on a 
plane - complete depressurisation of course, almost uncontrollable," he said. But all this is the purest 
speculation.

Because until they find it, no-one can talk with any authority about what really happened to Flight 447.


Timeline of Flight AF 447






Details are emerging of the events leading up to the disappearance of an Air France flight from Brazil to 
France in the early hours of Monday. Flight AF 447 left Rio de Janeiro, bound for Paris, at 1900 local time 
(2200 GMT) on Sunday 31 May. The aircraft in question, an Airbus A330-200 with registration F-GZCP, had 
been in operation since April 2005. Shortly after the aircraft's scheduled arrival time in Paris of 1110 local 
time (0910 GMT), it was announced that the flight was missing.

Here is what is known so far:

2200 GMT, Sunday 31 May: AF 447 takes off from Rio de Janeiro's Galeao International Airport, 
heading for Paris Charles de Gaulle.

0133 GMT, Monday 1 June: Last radar contact with flight AF 447, according to the Brazilian air force. 
The jet had just passed the Fernando de Noronha islands, about 350 km (217 miles) off the coast of Brazil.

0200 GMT: The aircraft crossed through a "thunderous zone with strong turbulence" according to an 
Air France statement.

0214 GMT: According to the airline, an automated message was received indicating an "electrical 
circuit malfunction" on board.

0715 GMT: Air France decided "the situation was serious", according to the airline's chief executive 
Pierre Henri Gourgeon. Plans to establish a crisis centre are drawn up.

0910 GMT: Aircraft was due to land at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.

0935 GMT: Paris airport officials announce to the public that flight AF 447 is missing.

1017 GMT: Brazil's air force confirms a search and rescue operation is under way near the Brazilian 
island of Fernando de Noronha.

1036 GMT: Air France confirms it is "without news" from the aircraft.

1116 GMT: Senior French minister Jean-Louis Borloo says the plane would have run out of fuel by 
this point, and adds: "We must now envisage the most tragic scenario." He rules out a hijacking.

1140 GMT: Brazil's air force says Flight AF 447 was "well advanced" over the Atlantic Ocean when 
it went missing.

1142 GMT: Air France confirms it received a message about an electrical fault from the aircraft.

1213 GMT: Air France suggests the electrical fault may have been caused by the plane suffering 
a lightning strike.

1303 GMT: Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he fears British citizens may be on board the aircraft.

1515 GMT: It is reported that most of the 228 people on board the missing airliner are Brazilian, 
while at least 40 are French and 20 are German, according to a French minister.

1632 GMT: An Air France spokesman confirms there are 80 Brazilians on board the missing plane, 
as well as German, Italian, American, Chinese, British and Spanish citizens.

1651 GMT: French President Nicolas Sarkozy says the prospect of finding survivors from the flight 
is "very slim".

1810 GMT: Air France releases the full passenger list, showing that most of those aboard are 
Brazilians or French. There are 32 nationalities in all. 







Air France passenger list

Press release N° 5

Air France is now able to confirm the nationalities of the passengers who were on board flight AF 447 on 31 
May 2009, which disappeared between Rio de Janeiro and Paris-Charles de Gaulle.  This list is based on the 
information provided by the Brazilian Authorities.

    * 2 American
    * 1 Argentinian
    * 1 Austrian
    * 1 Belgian
    * 58 Brazilian
    * 5 British
    * 1 Canadian
    * 9 Chinese
    * 1 Croatian
    * 1 Danish
    * 1 Dutch
    * 1 Estonian
    * 1 Filipino
    * 61 French
    * 1 Gambian
    * 26 German
    * 4 Hungarian
    * 3 Irish
    * 1 Icelandic
    * 9 Italian
    * 5 Lebanese
    * 2 Moroccan
    * 3 Norwegians
    * 2 Polish
    * 1 Romanian
    * 1 Russian
    * 3 Slovakian
    * 1 South African
    * 2 Spanish
    * 1 Swedish
    * 6 Swiss
    * 1 Turkish


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## Yrys (3 Jun 2009)

Airline received bomb threat, CTV (in the middle of the page)

Investigators Head to Jet Wreckage, NY Times
Among the Victims on Air France Flight, Doctors, Dancers and Royalty, NY Times
Victims Include Those Who Flocked to Brazil for Business, and a Royal, Wall Street journal
Brazil navy arrives in ocean zone, BBC News


Plane doomed by massive system failures: report, CTV

Messages sent by an Air France jet shortly before it disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean suggest 
that the plane may have broken up while still in the air as it passed through a violent storm system, 
according to a report published in a Brazilian newspaper.

Air France flight 447, with 228 passengers and crew on board, went missing Sunday night after it
lost contact with ground controllers during a flight from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Paris, France. A 
chronology of messages sent by the plane was published Wednesday in Brazil's O Estado de S. Paulo 
newspaper, with information credited to an anonymous source at Air France.

According to the story, a message from the pilot sent at 11 p.m. local time indicated the plane was flying 
through "CBs," black, electrically charged cumulonimbus clouds that are accompanied by high winds and 
lightening. At that time, thunderheads were producing 160 kilometre-per-hour updrafts into the airplane's 
flight path, according to satellite data.

About 10 minutes after the 11 p.m. message, the plane generated a number of automatic messages, which 
indicate that the pilot had disengaged. It also appears that the so-called "fly-by-wire" computer system had 
moved to alternate power and there was damage to controls that maintain the plane's stability. Alarms 
signifying damage to flight systems also sounded, the newspaper reported. Three minutes later, 
another burst of automatic messages showed that systems used by pilots to monitor air speed, altitude 
and direction had failed.

The last message, which signalled a loss of air pressure and an electrical failure, was sent at 11:14 p.m. 
This message has already been confirmed by the Brazilian air force, and could indicate that the cabin was 
rapidly depressurizing or that the plane was crashing into the ocean, the newspaper reported.

Both Air France and Brazilian military officials would not confirm the accuracy of the report. If the details 
of the report are true, experts said, it could mean that the plane broke apart mid-air.

"These are telling us the story of the crash. They are not explaining what happened to cause the crash," 
Bill Voss, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, told the Associated Press. "This is the 
documentation of the seconds when control was lost and the aircraft started to break up in air." 


Deep-sea challenge of Air France debris, BBC News

The remains of the Air France jet which went missing over the Atlantic on Monday are 
in very deep water, making the job of finding them extremely difficult, not to mention 
any attempt to salvage the aircraft and the bodies of those who were on board.

A French government minister has said the black box flight recorders are believed to 
be at a depth of between 3,660m (12,000 ft) and 3,700m. At this depth, pressure is 
immense and there is no daylight. Any search to locate the flight recorders and any 
plane wreckage will involve a number of technologies. Below we outline the main 
methods of salvaging wrecks, from divers to the latest deep sea exploratory vehicles. 






*Scuba diver*: US Navy divers were used to retrieve bodies and light debris from 
TWA flight 800 which crashed into the Atlantic off New York in 1996. The plane was 
discovered at a depth of 40m, within the maximum operating depth for divers which 
is typically 50m.

*Bathymetric survey*: This is a sonar device placed beneath a ship that would sail 
in a designated pattern over an area to map the seabed. It "looks" straight down to 
produce a 3-D map of the seabed but can only operate up to a depth of 1,000m.

*Pinger Locator System*: This is a specialised listening device that is towed at a depth 
of up to 4,000m by a ship. The device listens out for the sound of the pinger which is 
part of the flight recorder. It is activated on contact with sea water and every commercial 
aircraft carries one. It will emit a signal for up to 30 days.

*Side Scan Sonar*: Once the pinger is located, a more detailed survey of the area can 
be carried out. The SSS is a cigar-shaped tube that is towed by a ship to map the seabed 
in a designated pattern. "You attach it to a cable and you mow the lawn," says Tim Janaitis, 
Director of Business Development at Phoenix International, a specialist marine salvage 
company. Mr Janaitis said he believed only the US Navy had the sophisticated pinger 
locator system to operate at the depth the Air France aeroplane is believed to be.

*Remote Operated Vehicle*: These are highly sophisticated yet robust underwater vehicles 
that can operate at depths up to 6,000m. They have video and powerful lights to illuminate 
the gloomy deep waters that they operate in. They can also have mechanical arms attached 
that allow the ROV to pick up bits of debris or attach straps to enable a ship's winch to lift 
the item to the surface. Phoenix International says it has raised a portion of an Israeli 
submarine weighing 3,600kg from a depth of 3,000m. The US navy has raised an entire 
helicopter from a depth of 6,000m.

*Mini submarine*: France has dispatched a boat with a mini-submarine, the Nautile, aboard. 
This can operate at a depth of 6,000m, but it was not expected to reach the zone until early 
next week.


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## Yrys (4 Jun 2009)

Mystery deepens over missing Air France jet

FERNANDO DE NORONHA, Brazil (AFP) - Conflicting clues to the cause of the loss of an Air France jet 
and the 228 people on board emerged on Thursday, deepening the mystery as the hunt for evidence 
intensified.

A Spanish pilot flying in the same area as the Rio-Paris flight when it plunged into the Atlantic spoke 
of an "intense flash", while a Brazilian minister appeared to rule out a mid-air explosion. Meanwhile, 
a report in France suggested the pilots may have been flying at the "wrong speed" to deal with the 
fierce thunderstorm that they flew into in the early hours of Monday before the airliner's systems 
suddenly failed.

In a brief report on its website, the newspaper Le Monde said plane maker Airbus was preparing to 
send a warning to the operators of the hundreds of A330 jets in the world with new advice on flying 
in storms. Airbus refused to comment on the report, which cited a "source close to the crash inquiry" 
as saying that AF 447 had been flying at the "wrong" speed, but a company official told AFP that it 
was usual to update airlines.

"Each time there's an accident, it is imperative for the manufacturer to inform all operators of the 
type of aircraft concerned of any specific procedures to put in place or any checks to carry out," 
he said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such warnings -- called Accident 
Information Telexes -- were overseen by crash investigators from France's BEA aviation safety 
agency before being sent out.

"If the BEA is making a recommendation so early, it's because they know very well what happened," 
retired pilot Jean Serrat told AFP. "If the BEA is reminding pilots not to slow down too much, does 
that mean that the Rio-Paris slowed down too much?" he wondered.

The captain of a Spanish airliner claimed to have seen "an intense flash of white light" in the area 
where the plane was lost, his airline Air Comet said, confirming a report in the daily El Mundo.
The co-pilot and a passenger on the Air Comet flight from Lima to Lisbon also saw the light, it said, 
adding that a written report has been sent on to Air France, Airbus and the Spanish civil aviation 
authority. "Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed 
a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds," the unidentified captain wrote.

But while the Spanish pilot's account seemed to indicate there had been a mid-air fire or explosion, 
Brazil's defence minister said the presence of a fuel slick found in the ocean by spotter planes 
suggested otherwise. Nelson Jobim said late Wednesday that the 20-kilometer (12-mile) long 
kerosene trail "means that it is improbable that there was a fire or explosion" because the 
high-octane jet fuel would have ignited. But he admitted this was "just a hypothesis" and 
stressed that four days after the plane flew into a ferocious thunder storm midway between 
South America and Africa, the mystery of what happened was far from being solved.

Answers may lie in the plane's black box data and cockpit voice recorders, but they are likely 
resting on the rugged sea bottom, at least 3,000 meters below Atlantic waters still whipped up 
by foul weather. It would be extremely difficult -- maybe impossible -- to recover them even 
if the 200-kilometer wide search area were narrowed down, experts said. Two Brazilian navy 
vessels are in the area, 1,000 kilometers off Brazil's northeast coast, officials said. An air 
force plane has found more and bigger debris from the flight some distance from where other 
items were spotted.

No bodies have yet been found and French planes have yet to spot any wreckage themselves.

Three other Brazilian vessels, including a tanker able to keep the flotilla in the area for weeks, 
and a French ship with mini-submarines were to arrive in the coming days. A memorial service 
was to be held for the 216 passengers from 32 countries and 12 crew in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, 
with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner attending.

France, which lost 72 nationals, the biggest group on the plane, is leading the probe into the disaster. 
Two French investigators are already at work in Brazil, which lost 58 nationals.


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## old medic (7 Jun 2009)

Brazil says 17 bodies recovered from jet crash
Associated Press Wire 
07 June -  5:32 pm

RECIFE, Brazil – Brazilian military authorities say search boats scouring the Atlantic Ocean have now recovered 17 bodies of passengers on a doomed Air France flight that crashed a week ago.

Air Force Col. Henry Munhoz says four of the bodies were men and four were women. He did not immediately provide information about the gender of the other bodies. The flight was carrying 228 people when it crashed the night of May 31.

Munhoz also told reporters Sunday night that several structural parts of the Airbus 330 were recovered at the location from which Flight 447 sent a burst of messages saying it was having electrical problems and loss of cabin pressure.


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## CougarKing (10 Jun 2009)

And the French Navy/Le Marine Nationale joins in the search with the use of a submarine to look for the missing black boxes.


 Link




> RECIFE, Brazil – A French nuclear submarine reached the crash zone of Air France Flight 447 on Wednesday to join the search for the plane's black boxes, which may be the key to determining what brought the Airbus down in the sea off Brazil with 228 people on board.
> 
> The attack sub Emeraude plans to trawl 13 square miles (35 square kilometers) a day, using sonar to try to pick up the boxes' acoustic beacons or "pingers," French armed forces spokesman Christophe Prazuck said Wednesday.
> 
> ...


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## old medic (11 Jun 2009)

Terror Names Linked To Doomed Flight AF 447 
 3:58pm UK, Wednesday June 10, 2009

Peter Allen, in Paris
Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged.
http://news.sky.com


> French secret servicemen established the connection while working through the list of those who boarded the doomed Airbus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on May 31.
> 
> Flight AF 447 crashed in the mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm.
> 
> ...


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## Yrys (22 Jun 2009)

Atlantic crash bodies identified, BBC News






Officials in Brazil have identified the first 11 of 50 bodies recovered 
from the Air France disaster in which 228 people died three weeks ago.
The bodies were those of 10 Brazilians and one male foreigner, officials 
said. They gave no further details.

The Airbus A330 plunged in the Atlantic on 1 June. The data recorders 
have not been found, and the cause of the crash remains a mystery.

Search teams from several countries are still scanning the search area.
Investigators are reviewing the bodies and debris at a base set up in 
the northern Brazilian city of Recife. Five of the victims were identified 
as Brazilian men, five as Brazilian women and one as a "foreigner of 
the male sex", local officials said on Sunday.

Speculation about what caused the plane to go down between Rio de 
Janeiro and Paris has so far focused on the possibility that the airspeed 
sensors, known as pitot tubes, were not working. The plane is known to 
have registered inconsistent speed readings just before it crashed in 
turbulent weather.


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## Alea (1 May 2011)

*Crashed AF447 flight-data recorder found and retrieved * _By David Kaminski-Morrow_


Search teams have located and recovered the flight-data recorder from the crashed Air France Airbus A330-200, a month before the second anniversary of the accident.

The crucial cylindrical memory unit, which had been missing when the chassis of the recorder was originally located, was found during a dive operation by a remote underwater vehicle on 1 May.

French investigation agency Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses states that the unit has been "raised and lifted on board" the recovery vessel Ile de Sein, which is supporting the search.

BEA says the device was located at 10:00UTC and retrieved at 16:40UTC.

There are no immediate details as to the condition of the flight-data recorder, or whether the information from the 1 June 2009 crash has been preserved.

BEA has not indicated whether it is has localised the cockpit-voice recorder from the aircraft, which crashed in the South Atlantic while operating flight AF447 between Rio de Janeiro and Paris.














http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/05/01/356138/pictures-crashed-af447-flight-data-recorder-found-and-retrieved.html


Alea


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## George Wallace (1 May 2011)

Interesting photos.  I am curious that the Flight Recorder is sitting all by itself in the sand, and not attached to some other mangled wreckage.  Just seems odd to me.


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## Alea (1 May 2011)

Oops! I should have posted this one before the previous.
My appologies for the mishaps.

Alea

_________________________________________________________________________________


*AF447 flight-data recorder found but memory unit missing *   _By David Kaminski-Morrow_

Search teams trying to locate the flight recorders from Air France flight AF447 have located the flight-data recorder, but not the critical memory unit.

The chassis of the recorder was located during the first dive operation by a remote underwater vehicle, the Remora 6000, after a recovery vessel arrived in the crash zone yesterday.

France's Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses states that the chassis of the flight-data recorder has been found on the sea bed "surrounded by debris from other parts of the airplane".

But the BEA adds that the crucial crash-survivable memory unit - in which the data from the aircraft's instruments is stored -was not attached.

There is no indication of the whereabouts of the cockpit-voice recorder.

Flight AF447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed in the South Atlantic on 1 June 2009, sparking a two-year hunt for the Airbus A330-200's wreckage.










http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/04/27/356052/picture-af447-flight-data-recorder-found-but-memory-unit-missing.html


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