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WORLD> Europe
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Investigators ponder what happened to Air France
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-02 15:08 About two hours later, he received a phone call from Gustavo, telling him he had landed safely in Europe. Gustavo told him that he had been bumped to the flight that is missing but had insisted that he be allowed on the booked earlier flight and arrived safely.
Retired professor Vasdir Ester told the Terra Web site that her 40-year-old daughter Adriana Francisca Van Sluings was on the flight. Ester said Van Sluings is afraid of flying and was very worried before taking the flight. While what happened to the plane has not been determined, a Pentagon official said he'd seen no indication of terrorism or foul play. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the subject. Sarkozy said the cause of the plane's disappearance remains unclear and that "no hypothesis" is being excluded. The plane was cruising normally at 35,000 feet (10,670 meters) and 522 mph (840 kph) just before it disappeared nearly four hours into the flight. No trouble was reported as the plane left radar contact, beyond Brazil's Fernando de Noronha archipelago, at 10:48 p.m. local time (9:48 p.m. EDT Sunday, 0148 GMT Monday). But just north of the equator, a line of towering thunderstorms loomed. Bands of extremely turbulent weather stretched across the Atlantic toward Africa, as they often do in the area this time of year. The plane "crossed through a thunderous zone with strong turbulence," Air France said. About 14 minutes later, at 11:14 p.m. local time, (10:14 p.m. EDT Sunday, 0214 GMT Monday), an automatic message was sent reporting electrical system failure and a loss of cabin pressure. Air France said the message was the last it heard from Flight 447. Chief Air France spokesman Francois Brousse said a lightning strike could have damaged the plane. Henry Margusity, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com, noted that the thunderstorms towered up to 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) in the area, so it was possible that the plane flew directly into the most charged part of the storm - the top of it. Other experts doubted a bolt of lightning would be enough to bring the jet down. Some pointed to turbulence as a more dangerous factor. "Lightning issues have been considered since the beginning of aviation. They were far more prevalent when aircraft operated at low altitudes. They are less common now since it's easier to avoid thunderstorms," said Bill Voss, president and CEO of Flight Safety Foundation, in Alexandria, Virginia. Voss said planes are built to dissipate electricity along the aircraft's skin, and are tested for resistance to big electromagnetic shocks. Former US National Transportation Safety Board chairman Jim Hall said that since the A330 is widely used in international travel it was vitally important to locate the black boxes as quickly as possible and analyze what happened to Flight 447. "At this point accident investigators can't rule out anything," he said. "But these aircraft are designed to withstand almost any lightning strikes or any level of turbulence." Although aviation experts stressed it was much too early to speculate about the causes of the crash, they noted that the accident was most likely caused by various factors that combined to cause a catastrophic chain of events. |
