Air France have given a 3rd statement in French on their website, appears that they along with Airbus and the BEA will be joining the Brazilian authorities in dealing with this accident, which is to be expected in a case like this.

Air France a communiqué au Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’aviation civile (BEA), organisme chargé pour la France des enquêtes techniques sur les accidents et incidents dans l’aviation civile, et à Airbus, constructeur de l’avion, l’ensemble des informations en sa possession après la disparition du vol AF 447 effectuant la liaison Rio de Janeiro – Paris-Charles de Gaulle : la compagnie est en contact permanent avec le BEA et Airbus.

Like I said earlier. Its incredibly frustrating that this has happened over water.
It will make finding it very difficult if not impossible, to say nothing about finding out what happened.

Worst case scenario they could draw on the experiences from the Helderberg crash in 1987, took 2 months to find the boxes on that one and that was only after specialist sonar teams were brought in. Technology is much better now, so perhaps they will have a better fighting chance of finding the plane or at least the boxes within a reasonable amount of time.

Either way it will doubtless be a very difficult investigation since all of the evidence is probably at the bottom of the Atlantic and only very small amounts, if anything, will be floating.

Looking at the map, its just a huge area to seach, especially since in all likelihood the boxes will be on the sea bed somewhere. Needle in haystack with only the EPERB’s to guide them…

Statement in French on the Air France website, still to be fully transcribed into English & other languages…

Air France a le regret d’annoncer la disparition du vol AF 447 effectuant la liaison Rio de Janeiro – Paris-Charles de Gaulle, arrivée prévue ce matin à 11h10 locales, comme vient de l’annoncer à la presse le Directeur général d’Air France, Pierre-Henri Gourgeon.

L’appareil de type Airbus A330-200, immatriculé F-GZCP, a quitté Rio le 31 mai à 19h03 heure locale (00h03 heure de Paris).

L’appareil a traversé une zone orageuse avec fortes turbulences à 2 heures du matin (heure universelle), soit 4h00 heure de Paris. Un message automatique a été reçu à 2h14 (4h14 heure de Paris) indiquant une panne de circuit électrique dans une zone éloignée de la côte.

L’ensemble des contrôles aériens civils brésilien, africain, espagnol et français ont tenté en vain d’établir le contact avec le vol AF447. Le contrôle aérien militaire français a essayé de détecter l’avion, sans succès.

216 passagers sont à bord : 126 hommes, 82 femmes, 7 enfants et un bébé.

L’équipage est composé de 12 navigants : 3 navigants techniques et 9 navigants commerciaux.

Le commandant de bord a 11 000 heures de vol et déjà effectué 1 700 heures sur Airbus A330/A340. Les deux copilotes ont 3 000 heures de vol pour l’un (dont 800 sur Airbus A330/A340) et 6 600 pour l’autre (dont 2 600 sur Airbus A330/A340).

L’appareil est équipé de moteurs General Electric CF6-80E.

L’avion totalise 18 870 heures de vol et a été mis en service le 18 avril 2005.

Sa dernière visite d’entretien en hangar date du 16 avril 2009.

Air France partage l’émotion et l’inquiétude des familles concernées. Les proches sont reçus dans un endroit spécialement réservé à l’aérogare de Paris-Charles de Gaulle 2.

Although not in English it is hard not to get the gist of what is said, especially the fact that there were children on board and that the plane was last in the hangar in April.

At this point, there is little more than sympathies to everyone who had family & friends aboard the plane, it really does not look like there will be any good news out of this tragic event 🙁

From the variety of media reports circulating, it appears that the alarm was raised when the flight failed to contact Cape Verde radar, but that is not confirmed by authorities as yet.

The search area is massive, from Fernando de Noronha to Cape Verde Islands.

We have the registration of the plane now too, incase anyone has a photo of it from the past…

http://avherald.com/h?article=41a81ef1&opt=0

An Air France Airbus A330-200, registration F-GZCP performing flight AF-447 (dep May 31st) from Rio de Janeiro,RJ (Brazil) to Paris Charles de Gaulle (France) with 216 passengers and 12 crew, is overdue at Paris Charles de Gaulle for more than an hour. The airplane had departed Brazil’s radar coverage normally.

A crisis and intervention center has been setup at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Brazil has launched a search and rescue operation off their coast along the last known radar positions near the Island of Fernando de Noronha where the airplane had failed to establish required radio communication.

It is definitely AF447…

Departing from : Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro Intl (GIG) – Brazil – 1900

Arriving in : Paris, Charles de Gaulle (CDG) – France – 1115

Departure flight : Sunday 31 May 2009

AF447 – 332 – Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro Intl (GIG) – Brazil – Terminal 1 – Paris, Charles de Gaulle (CDG) – France – Terminal 2E – Flight time – 11h15

Taken off the Air France website.