2 June : An Air France plane was believed to have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean after hitting stormy weather on Monday. The plane was on its commercial flight en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris and all the 228 passengers including 12 crew members on board were fear killed.
France and Brazil sent military planes and ships to scour a vast area of ocean where the Airbus jet may have come down on Monday while two Spanish aircraft joined the search for Air France passengers.
The airline and officials said there was little chance that anyone could have survived. French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday met passengers’ relatives at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport and later said it was a tragic accident and the chances of finding survivors are tiny.
The plane was carrying 216 passengers of 32 nationalities. Sixty-one were French citizens, 58 Brazilian and 26 German.The airline said that the jet flew into storms and heavy turbulence four hours after take-off from Rio and 15 minutes later sent an automatic message reporting electrical faults.
The airline’s chief executive said that the ill fated jet suffered multiple technical failures before crashing into the Atlantic.