AIRBUS CRASH DISASTER:IT WAS a disaster that happened in the dead of night. But it wasn't until noon yesterday that a sickening dread descended on the normally bustling Terminal 2E of Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport.
On the long-haul arrivals noticeboard, below the list of flights from Houston or Buenos Aires which had arrived on time, Air France flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro was simply flashing “retarde” (“delayed”). But the panic-stricken faces of airport staff as they ushered away passengers’ waiting relatives told a different story, of an aircraft that would not arrive at all.
The flight from Brazil had mysteriously disappeared more than seven hours before. An Airbus 330-200, one of the world’s most dependable long-haul jets, full of business travellers and holidaymakers arriving on a French bank holiday, had disappeared over the Atlantic leaving no trace, four hours after takeoff.
With almost no chance of finding any survivors, and faced with a painstaking search of an immense stretch of ocean unlikely to yield a sunken aircraft and its black box, France braced itself for the worst loss of life on an Air France aircraft in the carrier’s 75-year history. Of 228 people on board, most were Brazilian or French, but there were at least a dozen other nationalities, including five Britons and three Irish. For hours the French government refused to use the word “crash” and the horror was worsened by bafflement that the disaster made no sense.
Contrary to Hollywood movies, planes most often crash on land, often after takeoff. For an aircraft to disappear into the ocean is incredibly rare. Air France suggested the aircraft, which went through extreme turbulence over the Atlantic, was probably hit by lightning.
But questions remained. Long-haul jets, described by one ex-pilot as like lightning-proof “metal cages”, are routinely hit by lightning flashes. Most emerge unscathed or with short electrical problems. Lightning has not brought down a plane since 1963.
Many wondered, if lightning alone did not down the aircraft, what other factors were involved. Why was no distress signal sent by the pilot? Was the accident short and sudden? But after long hours in which the French and Brazilian air forces and navies swept the surface of the ocean between Brazil and Senegal, the key question raised by Nicolas Sarkozy was how the wreckage could ever be found.
At Charles de Gaulle, the second busiest passenger airport in Europe, panicked relatives arrived all day, ferried in buses to the Air France crisis centre. An elderly woman, her face in spasm, struggled along helped by police, a man held a teenager close to him.
Many almost ran in to the terminal area with hands over their mouths as if about to be sick. Gendarmes specialising in identifying victims’ remains arrived at the airport, but their presence only made it more horrifying and poignant – there probably would be no remains to recover. They would have to interview relatives to be sure who died.
At Toulouse airport, where a handful of the flight’s passengers were due to land after connecting from Paris, relatives were counselled by police. One woman insisted only one thing mattered: where was the aircraft?
In Brazil, some still clung to hope. “I cried a little in the taxi, but I still have hope,” Vazti Ester Van Sluijs (70), the mother of Adriana Francisco Sluijs, one of the Brazilian passengers told the Brazilian news website Ultimo Segundo at Rio’s international airport. “I don’t believe it.”
Flight A447 left Rio on Sunday at 7pm local time, almost full, with 216 passengers and 12 crew, including an expert pilot with 11,000 hours’ flying experience and two co-pilots. The aircraft had just passed a routine service in April. Most passengers were French (61) or Brazilian (58), but the transatlantic jet has long since become a multinational melting pot, and there were Germans, Italians, Irish, Moroccans, Chinese and Hungarians aboard.
Both Rio and Paris are key regional hubs and Rio-Paris is a route often used to connect to the Middle East by business passengers. Among those on board were a descendent of Brazil’s royal family, a high-ranking civil servant from the office of Rio’s mayor, the South American president of Michelin, a well-known Brazilian conductor, and the chairman of the German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp’s Brazilian arm.
Three and a half hours after takeoff, the aircraft made its last contact with aviation authorities 350 miles off the northeastern coast of Brazil. Half an hour after that, at about 4am French time, Air France officials received an automatic signal indicating electrical problems while going through strong turbulence. But no contact was made with the pilot, no distress signal was made and the jet disappeared off all radar without a Mayday call.
Air France spokesman Francois Brousse said several of the aircraft’s mechanisms had malfunctioned, preventing it from making contact with air traffic controllers. But for hours, the French government held out hope.
At lunchtime, a tearful Jean-Louis Borloo, the ecology minister, responsible for transport said: “Until now, I’ve kept up hope, but now I know the petrol has run out. The aircraft cannot possibly still be in the air.” He said he feared the worst. “It’s an awful tragedy.” Both Air France and the government avoided the word “crash” for several more hours.
“We are without doubt facing an air catastrophe,” Air France-KLM chief executive, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon, said in tears in early afternoon.
Brazilian military aircraft were searching off the coast of Brazil, as were three long-range French military aircraft which left Dakar, Senegal. Naval vessels were also scrambled. Brazilian authorities said the aircraft may have gone down near the Sao Pedro e Sao Paulo archipelago. – ( Guardianservice)