More than 200 feared dead as plane just vanishes

Published on Monday 1 June 2009 22:06

FIVE Britons are among 228 people feared dead after an Air France plane vanished during a flight from Brazil to Paris.

It is thought the Airbus A330 could have ditched in the Atlantic following an electrical fault, possibly caused by a lightning strike.

"We are probably facing an air catastrophe," said Air France chief executive Pierre-Henri Gourgeon.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy said the prospects of finding survivors was "very small".

However, mystery continued to surround the disappearance of the aircraft. It took off from Rio de Janeiro and vanished about 1,500 miles into its flight. It had flown through severe thunderstorms shortly before an automatic message in the early hours of the morning reported an electrical fault.

The passengers included 61 French, 58 Brazilians, 26 Germans, five Britons and three Irish, an Air France spokeswoman said. Among them were a baby and seven children. Twelve crew were also on board. It was unclear whether any of the Britons on board were from Scotland.

Last night it emerged that the Irish victims were three young women who were best friends forging out promising careers as doctors. They were returning home after a holiday in Brazil with other friends who graduated with them from Trinity College Dublin two years ago.

They were named locally as Aisling Butler, of Roscrea, Co Tipperary, Jane Deasy of Dublin and Eithne Walls, originally from Belfast. They were with a fourth woman, a British national from Wales.

President Sarkozy said families desperately waiting for news of loved ones included "a mother who lost her son" and "a fiance who lost her future husband".

Air France was providing counselling at Charles de Gaulle and Rio de Janeiro airports for friends and relatives.

Theories to explain the plane's disappearance range from electrical failure to terrorism. The Air France Flight 447 took off at 11pm UK time and vanished near the remote archipelago of Fernando de Noronha about four hours into the flight.

Air France said the jet ran into stormy weather with strong turbulence. About 15 minutes later, an automatic message was received from the plane indicating an electrical failure.

Air France spokesman Francois Brousse said "it is possible" the plane was hit by lightning.

No mayday call was sent, suggesting disaster struck so quickly the pilot had no time to react.

Kieran Daly, group editor of Air Transport Intelligence, told The Scotsman he believed the lack of a mayday call was very significant. "It tells you a great deal. You assume in that case that whatever happens was fairly sudden and probably fairly catastrophic," he said.

Search efforts were hampered because the location of the plane when it disappeared was unknown.

Brazilian Air Force planes set off from Fernando de Noronha – a 21-island archipelago about 220 miles off the coast of Brazil – to scour the ocean for the missing aircraft. Three ships were sent by the Brazilian navy and France sent a plane from west Africa along with several ships.

Douglas Ferreira Machado, the head of investigation and accident prevention for Brazil's Civil Aeronautics Agency, said: "It's going to take a long time to carry out this search. It could be a long, sad story. The black box will be at the bottom of the sea."

Experts said airliners were regularly hit by lightning, usually with little or no consequence. Most, like the A330, are built mainly of aluminium, which is very good at dissipating the massive energy contained in a lightning bolt.

However, Mr Daly said it was possible a lightning strike could have catastrophic consequences. He said: "They get hit by lightning as a matter of routine. Typically there is no great problem but in theory you can have a sufficiently severe strike that the electricity and heat is enough to damage the aircraft.

"Typically even then it will survive. However, in principle you can be sufficiently unfortunate for it to happen where it causes damage to the electrical system. It's highly unusual but the possibility is there."

He added that the Airbus A330 had an "exceptional" safety record.

David Learmount, operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine, said: "An event like this is the kind the aviation world hoped it would not see again, because it involves a world-class carrier flying the latest generation of airliner, and it occurred en route, not during take-off or landing in difficult weather. It's a chilling reminder that nothing is impossible, however unthinkable."

He added that "anyone who doubts that a certain type of electrical fault could start a fire that could bring an airplane down" should remember a Swissair MD-11 crash in September 1998 that killed all 229 people on board.

It crashed off Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada, almost an hour into a flight to New York.

A fire spread above the ceiling in the front area of the aircraft, and all the aircraft systems failed, radio communications and radar contact with the plane were lost.

Air France yesterday sent its "sincere condolences" to families of those on board. Mr Gourgeon said the pilot, who has not been named, had 11,000 hours of flying experience, including 1,700 hours on the Airbus.

The plane went into service in April 2005 and had its last maintenance check in a hangar on 16 April this year.

Flight 447 joins grim toll of air disasters

THE last major incident involving an Air France plane was in July 2000 when one of its Concorde supersonic airliners crashed just after take-off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. All 109 people on board the New York-bound flight were killed, along with four on the ground.

Other catastrophes – and near-catastrophes – include:

&#149 In August 2005, an Air France Airbus burst into flames after shooting off the runway at Toronto airport following a storm. No-one died in the crash.

&#149 The deadliest air disasters in the past decade have included a China Airlines crash in May 2002, when 225 people died after it broke apart in mid air and crashed into the Taiwan Strait.

&#149 In November 2001 an American Airlines Airbus crashed after take-off from JFK Airport into the New York City borough of Queens, killing 265 people.

&#149 In October 1999 an EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashed off Nantucket and 217 people died.

&#149 The most devastating air crash in history happened in March 1977, when a KLM 474 and Pan American 747 collided on a runway in Tenerife in the Canary Islands. The crash killed 583 people.

&#149 Recent air crashes in Brazil have included that which killed Roger Wright, owner of asset management firm Arsenal Investimentos, earlier this month.

His King Air B350 private plane crashed in the north-eastern state of Bahia, killing all 14 people on board.

So what happened? One theory stands out

AN automatic message sent from the Airbus shortly after it went through a heavy storm could hold the key to solving the mystery of its disappearance.

The message indicated that the plane had suffered an electrical fault after the severe turbulence.

This has led Air France to suggest a lightning strike could have caused an electrical fault, which resulted in the plane ditching in the Atlantic.

A fire could have broken out following a lightning strike, with similarly devastating consequences.

Another theory – which became less and less likely yesterday – was that the plane could have been safe but out of contact due to damaged communications systems.

Expert Kieran Daly said this was always unlikely because even if one means of communications went down, there would be several back-up options. Also, the plane would have had to land safely before the fuel ran out. If the pilot had brought the plane down on land, it would have been spotted.

Mr Daly said: "Could it have been landed on the water? In principle, but it's a fairly astonishing feat of skill to ditch an aircraft in daylight. The chance of doing it at night would be very, very difficult indeed.

"Until proven otherwise, there's the remotest possibility of it being intact somewhere but it's almost impossible."

He added it would have been an unlikely target for terrorists. "It would be odd to blow it up in the middle of the ocean. Usually they would want some sort of dramatic visual effect. It's also not that easy to bring down an aircraft with a bomb."

A bomb that could be sneaked past security would likely be too small to bring an airliner down, he added.

Hijacking seems equally unlikely as the plane would have landed and been spotted.