http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/06/01/air.france.brazil/index.htmlhere's what it says on the news : PARIS, France (CNN) -- An Air France plane feared to have crashed in the Atlantic with 228 people aboard reported electrical problems in stormy weather before it lost contact, the airline said Monday, describing the loss as a "catastrophe." The Airbus A330-200 sent an automatic message signaling equipment failure as it hit turbulence early in its 11-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, Air France CEO Pierre-Henri Gourgeon told a news conference. The last known contact with the plane was at 1:33 a.m. GMT (8:33 p.m. Sunday night ET), according to the Brazilian Air Force. Brazil says it has launched two air force squadrons to hunt near the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha in the Atlantic Ocean, 365 kilometers (226 miles) from its coast, although the plane vanished outside the country's radar coverage. Flight AF 447, took off shortly after 7 p.m. Sunday local time (6 p.m. Sunday ET). It was carrying 126 men, 82 women, seven children and a baby, in addition to the crew, Air France said. "I can say without doubt that this is a catastrophe," Gourgeon said, adding "the entire Air France company and its staff are very moved and affected by this." A crisis center was being set up at Charles de Gaulle to deal with anxious relatives and friends waiting for news of passengers. Air France has also set up a hotline: 0800 800 812 in France, or +33 157021055 for international callers.. Airbus has opened a crisis room and their flight safety team is in place, a company spokesperson told CNN. Airbus is working closely with authorities and Air France, he said, declining to comment further. French President Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his "very deep concern" and asked the government "to implement every effort to find the plane," according to a statement from his office. Agence France-Presse quoted France's Environment Minister Jean Louis Borloo saying that it was extremely unlikely the plane had been hijacked. Gourgeon said the aircraft involved was a new Airbus piloted by a "particularly experienced crew." Analyst Kieran Daly of online aviation news service Air Transport Intelligence told CNN that the lack of communication with the aircraft "does suggest it was something serious and catastrophic." He said the aircraft involved is believed to be one delivered to Air France in April 2005.

They think it was lightning, but they not gonna know anything before they find the plane i guess

I still pray for the best, but guess it gone to long time

It's hard to keep hope after this long, but hopefully there are survivors.

Airbus A330 is totally computer controlled, pilot uses computers and joystick (like video game) to fly plane, if it had a bad electrical failure there are no manual cables to control any of the flight surfaces. From what I usually hear, the so called experts say lightning is usually no problem as the electricity travels through the aluminum skin of the plane, around the outside, not through the plane, but lightning does strange things too.

Just hope pilots didn't lose all control, maybe pull off another Hudson landing in Atlantic, find survivors floating on escape chutes. Being Summer at least temperature is a little bit warmer.

Very sad news

I never flew a A330 but every airplane has a Flight Crew Operating Manual.

But every modern passenger jet have miles of wires and dozens of computers and other instruments that control everything from the engines to the passengers' headsets. These computers, like all computers, are sometimes susceptible to upset from power surges. So, in addition to safeguarding the aircraft's exterior, the lightning protection engineer must make sure that no damaging surges or transients can reach the sensitive equipment inside the aircraft. Lightning traveling on the exterior skin of an aircraft has the potential to induce transients into wires or equipment beneath the skin. These transients are called lightning indirect effects.

But your right about the lightning.Protection begins with the fact that airliners, and the majority of other airplanes, are made of aluminum, which is a very good electrical conductor. A lightning bolt's electricity flows along the airplane's skin and into the air.But dangerous is that the flash could blind the pilots for a few seconds, but I've never found any accounts of this causing any problems.This led to rules requiring that airplanes have built-in systems that ensure that a spark will not ignite fuel or fuel vapors in tanks or fuel lines.

But surviving in the Atlantic,i don't know.....My opinion,No way !!

Taking off at 6pm and last heard of at 8.33pm means that at its normal cruise speed it was some 1200-1300 miles out over the south Atlantic. The ocean at that distance from South America would be something like 3-3.5km deep so finding the wreckage is a major practical problem (it took a 12 day search in 1985 to find the much larger wreck of the Titanic at a similar depth). There can be little doubt that some disaster has overtaken the aircraft but finding out exactly what happened is loikely to present major logistical problems. My heart goes out to the relatives of those aboard

hmmm sad news...

very very scary and sad news. Done that route several times, and going again in August :/

Done that route too, but this is the risk of flying.

Flying is still safer than riding a motorbike in TH. Probably

it's the Bermuda triangle!!!

I'm flying on Friday on the Singapore Airbus. As tragic as this event is, now is probably the safest time to fly since nobody will be taking security checks or bad weather lightly until this becomes old news.