QuoteAN Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris has crashed into the Atlantic after suffering an electrical failure while flying through a fierce storm.
If it is confirmed that all 228 people were killed it would be the worst loss of life in Air France's history and civil aviation's worst accidental disaster for more than a decade.
Air France's chief executive said today the missing plane had multiple technical failures before crashing into the Atlantic.
"A succession of a dozen technical messages" sent by the aircraft around 0215 GMT showed that "several electrical systems had broken down" which caused a "totally unprecedented situation in the plane," said Pierre-Henry Gourgeon.
"It is probable that it was shortly after these messages that the impact in the Atlantic came," he told reporters at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris where the flight from Rio de Janeiro was meant to land on Monday.
Gourgeon said that military planes had narrowed down their search area to a zone of a few dozen nautical miles half-way between Brazil and west Africa.
Full Article: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25573101-5001021,00.html
Pretty tragic stuff..