Message #149855

[Bianca]

'She was on the plane'



The plane's automatic report was generated at 0214 GMT on Monday, about four hours after Flight AF 447 left Rio de Janeiro, and as it was heading through turbulence towards the west African coast.


Missing man Arthur Coakley’s wife, Patricia, and his business partner Ken Pearce
"A succession of a dozen technical messages" showed that "several electrical systems had broken down" which caused a "totally unprecedented situation in the plane", said Mr 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, where the airliner had been due to land.

Flight AF 447 was flying at an altitude of 10,670m (35,000ft) shortly before it went missing.

A meteorologist who spoke to the Associated Press said tropical thunderstorms in the Atlantic could tower up to 15,240m (50,000ft).

"At the altitude it was flying, it's possible that the Air France plane flew directly into the most charged part of the storm - the top," said Henry Margusity, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com.

French officials have stressed that the plane's captain was very experienced, clocking up more than 11,000 hours of flight.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy personally met relatives and friends of passengers at a crisis centre set up in Charles de Gaulle airport.

"I told them the truth," he said afterwards. "The prospects of finding survivors are very small."

At Rio's Jobim airport, shocked relatives were ushered into a closed lounge, away from the media and into the care of psychologists and doctors.

One woman, Vasti Ester van Sluijs, told AFP she had jumped into a taxi as soon as she heard news that the plane was missing.

"My daughter Adriana Francesca was on the plane," she said.