Air France: jet 'probably hit by lightning'

Air France was facing the worst crash in its history today after a passenger jet with 228 people aboard went missing over the Atlantic on a flight from Brazil.

Flight AF447 took off from Rio de Janeiro at 7.30pm last night bound for Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, where it was due to arrive at 11.15am (0915GMT).

But there was confusion as to where it may have come down.

The Paris airport authority said that it had lost radar contact with the Airbus A300-200 at 0600 GMT, only three hours before its arrival time, which would suggest that it could have come down near Europe, probably off the Azores.

But the Brazilian Air Force said that the plane disappeared about 300 km northeast of the Brazilian coastal city of Natal, near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, from where a search-and-rescue mission was mounted this morning.

The aircraft's apparent failure to send any distress message suggests that it could have been victim of a sudden, violent event – a mechanical breakdown, accidental explosion in the hold or terrorist attack, although Jean-Louis Borloo, the French transport minister, ruled out the possibility of a hijack.

A spokeswoman for the airline said: "Air France announces with regret that it is without news of flight AF447 from Rio to Paris, which has 216 passengers aboard, and shares the fears of the families involved."

Air France said that there were a total of 12 crew aboard the plane, including three technicians.

An official at the Paris airport authority said: "We are very worried. 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."

Airport authorities have set up a crisis cell at Charles de Gaulle and Air France said all those waiting for the flight would be given access to a special waiting area at the airport's second terminal.

The aircraft in question, tail number F-GZCP, came into service in February 2005.

President Sarkozy's office said that he had asked authorities to "do all they could" to help find the missing aircraft. In a statement, the Elysée said that the President had been informed of the loss of contact this morning and had expressed "the greatest anxiety".

Brazil had two major plane crashes in 2006 and 2007, raising concerns about the safety of air travel in Latin America’s largest country.

In July 2007, all 187 people on board and 12 people on the ground died when a TAM airline Airbus A 320 overshot a runway at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas airport.

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