Air France Flight 447 Airbus Missing

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Contact photographer Gabriel Widyna

Family members can call — 0 800 800 812 for people in France and 00 33 1 57 02 10 55 for families outside France.

What: 4 year old Air France Airbus A330-200 en route from Rio de Janeiro,RJ (Brazil) to Paris Charles de Gaulle
Where: Missing over the Atlantic Ocean
When: June 1
Who: In all, there were 216 passengers (incl seven children and one baby, 82 women and 126 men) and 12 crew. 60 French citizens were on the plane. Italy said at least three passengers were Italian.The pilot had 11,000 hours of flying experience, and 1,700 hours flying this aircraft.
Why: The last known radio contact was an automatic message made at 0133 GMT when the plane was near the Island of Fernando de Noronha; since then, the airplane has made no radio communication. Fifteen minutes after flying through a storm and strong turbulence, there was an electrical short-circuit. There is speculation that the plane may have been hit by lightning.

Search planes left Fernando de Noronha Island looking for signs of the plane concentrating in an area 230 miles off the northeast Brazil coast. Though there is not radar over the entire ocean, the black box will be emit a signal even if it is under water.

The flight left Rio at 7 p.m. and was expected in Paris on Monday at 11:15 a.m. By now, fuel would have run out.

Families of the missing are being brought to an information centre at Charles de Gaulle airport.