Air France Flight 447: Officials say 'No Hope' for Missing Plane

Official Statement from Air France:

Paris, 01 June 2009 - 16:44 local time

Press release N° 4

Air France expresses its deepest sympathy to the relatives and friends of the passengers and crew who were on board AF flight 447 on 31 May 2009, which disappeared somewhere between Rio de Janeiro and Paris-Charles de Gaulle.

Air France is doing its utmost to provide support to relatives and friends: counselling with physicians and psychologists as well as specially trained Air France volunteers has been set up at the airports of Paris-Charles de Gaulle 2 and Rio de Janeiro.     

Air France has also established a special toll-free number for the attention of relatives and friends of passengers who may have been on board. They can use this number to obtain information on whether or not a member of their family or friends were on board.

Phone number reserved for relatives and friends

0800 800 812 in France,

0800 881 20 20 in Brazil,

and + 33 1 57 02 10 55 for calls from all other countries.

Air France will release further information as soon as it is available. 

NB: We ask journalists not to call this number, which is reserved for relatives and close friends.

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 1 Swedish 6 Swiss 1 Turkish

all together pray for them.the only powerfull thing at the moment.

I pray for everyone that's died. And why are foreign airlines just crashing? Do the pilots have the skills of American pilots and just find ways to solve problems, or avoid the damn thunderstorm!!!

I'm a little confused by this... do they KNOW it has crashed? No, allow me to rephrase, how could they NOT KNOW if it has crashed? Is it me, or is it more than a tad puzzling that they have not yet explicitly stated there has been a crash, yet are releasing all manner of sympathies and setting up for just such an event?

Add to this that I am now very curious indeed about the status and technology in use with France's air traffic control, as having a plane simply 'drop' off of radar is hardly usual what with the manner in which the airways are monitored.

It begins to sound as if there were electrical issues with the plane and my time with the air line industry doing maintenance logs and FAA reporting relating thereto tells me that positioning this as 'being caused by turbulence' (implication of the above quoted lead in) is both concerning and, frankly, a bit disturbing. 'It's missing, we can't tell where it might be, and oh, we think turbulence caused an electrical short that downed it.'

Er... color me cynical, perhaps even jaded, but that sounds a terrible lot like pre-litigation positioning, which seems worse to me than the reality that, in today's world, with today's technology, it is even possible to actually "lose" a plane.

I suppose time will tell.

This is one update among a slew of updates, according to the NYT, the Airbus is relatively new. 

I have a bit of background in aviation. Reading the facts it suggests to me that the aircraft penetrated severe turbulence at 35,000ft and 470 knots. When you hit severe turbulence at 470knots it is like slamming into a wall.

The automated reporting system ACARS before going offline reported depressurisation and electrical failure and speed decayed to 453 knots. That suggests structural failure cause electrical failure and depressurisation.

Aircraft at these high altitudes fly in very thin air. This thin air means that the stall speed is very close to the cruise speed. If you lose the autopilot in darkness at 470knots then immediately you have difficulty maintaining atttude and speed.

In these conditions it is very easy to drop below stall speed and lose control of the aircraft. Pilots call it falling out of Mach box 

Apparently, the Airbus 330 is heavily dependent on computers, which didn't allow for a lot of human pilots' control:

Wake Turbulence caused the break up of American Airlines Flt 587 in 2001 .

You miss the point that turbulence by itself would not normally be enough, but a combination of factors like electrical failure in darkness, depressurisation and speed decay dropping out of mach box when compounded would cause the loss of Air France 447

Mr. Gunson,

Thank you for an informed and informative response. It is far more helpful than emotional knee jerk responses which look to point a finger.

For the family and friends of those who were lost in this accident, my sincere wish is for comfort and peace.

hi all,

being a cabin crew, i wish to send my Deepest condolences to all the friend and loved ones of those who lost their lives.

May i suggest to all to stop bickering on what the fault was or who's to blame until the wreckage is found and we've given the departed the send-off that they all deserve.

May God Rest their souls in Peace.

Pole Sana

its sad,very very sad the happened! its not matter where they from the victims,even less....the crew!!! mine GOD! the crew..were working! trying to make their work plus being so scare i think ,about this situation!  please,please! dont put the fault in any body!  always if you take a plain....people  will know something like that could happens! i know it! people know it!  ... tecnology could't never be ahead nature factors!   yes,human being try but,nature its nature so powerful! so,anyway i just would like ......pray! everybody who beliave in something,not religion,juts...who BELIAVE in something,pray in their religion,at their way! but pray!...you,me,him she,we sometime......we are expose to something like this could happens! so ...for all that families and for all people in that plain....a pray for a miracle!

Prayers do go out, but it all seems very very bleak indeed!

It is sad and painful we went thro that when KQ crushed in cameron

 To me this is a wake up call, it tells me that I am not promised tomorrow, that I should keep my house in order. Not to harbour anger or bitterness but to live in Peace and Harmony, To live as if it were my last day. I am told that live is a vapour, a blade of grass. Here one minute and gone the next, my concern is where will I spend eternity? Basil

My apologies. I don't wish to trivialise the grief for families of lost loved ones. It is a horrible thing to happen.

BeautyIsAnimate you are very welcome. Blame is not appropriate either at this moment, nor do I think in the long run could any blame be attached to these pilots.

At 0200GMT the Captain sent a text message via the ACARS system to say they had encountered severe turbulence and were amongst CB or towering thunderclouds. The last automated signal was at 0214GMT. 

In the tropics these clouds can extend from almost sea level to above 50,000 feet. They are boiling masses of superheated air rising into cooler air above them. They will not stop rising until they cool. The aircraft could not out climb these clouds and pilots were threading their way through massive storm systems in the dark.

Inside these CB are massive updrafts of around 2000 feet per minute often quite close to down drafts of equal speed downwards. These can literally snap an aircraft. I still think the pilots were not at fault and I still think no single factor caused the crash. This event will probably cause a serious rethink of proceedures concerning flight through tropical thunderstorms in the aviation community outlawing such a flight in the future.  

My heart goes out to all the families and friends of the passengers and crew. I hope they discover the mystery to this crash in order to allow some type of closure for everyone. Maybe with the findings we will be able to prevent something this catastrophic from happening in the future.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of all on flight

How Safe are you when you cross the oceans?

The Airbus 330-200 is one of the safest aircraft in the world with an immaculate safety record in the public transportation.

The reason of this accident I am pretty sure has to do with either lack of information about the weather or poor judgment when the pilot encounter that the weather started to make the flight unsafe, either way is unacceptable and has to be address by the authorities with recommendations that will prevent this in the future, specialy that we have the technology to avoid going to the point of no return, I have many hours of flight time as a pilot and I garanty that the captain of that aircraft was very well trained, how ever he was the ultimate comander of any decision make in that aircraft. Air France fligh 447 wasn't along in the ride in the atlantic ocean that night, I belive with a little more attention from the control centers this could have being prevented, the next time I cross the atlantic of any ocean, I will think I am along in the ride with the rest of passenger and crew that acompany me on that journey, sad but true, this 300 ton aircraft vanish on this air and no single authority know where it was up until who knows how many hour after, I hope someone some day will consider a tracking system of those flights over the oceans of the world, and not leaveing them along in the darkness of the seas. Bad weather happens all the time any where in the world, but lack of information and more attention to details on a transoceanic flight can most definitly better. my condolences to all the families and friends of all souls on board Air France Flight 447!  

may god protect everyone in this world. to your enimies to your friends too everything which has a living thing i pray that flight 447 of air france. may we found the plane and the black box. hope!!!!!!! we thing is some one is alive......   just pray for them who died in the plane,and for their children for thier family,mother,father,brother,sister,uncle,aunty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 just pray...........  

I would like to say that it is very easy to lay blame on the pilots and pass judgement. I can say for a fact that that is the first inclination, but in reality - we are all at the mercy of God at any given moment of our lives. We never know how, when or where we will leave the earth plane.  It's a sad and tragic event - and I pray for everyone on that flight and all of the people in their lives who are worried and fear the worst.  No matter how great our accomplishments, intelligence or technology - we are still humans, and subject to errors in judgment and/or failures of technology, so no matter what the cause, it shows that no human is ever really in control of anything.

All I can say is have faith and believe for the individuals who were aboard on this aircraft that they are now in GODS hands. Prayers for each and everyone one on this flight, and my condolences to there families, and friends.